Chronicles of the Fall: Reality on Vacation
by midori Haru
Summary: Ever wonder how the innumerable shards of the Shikon no Tama managed to be found so quickly by Kagome and Inuyasha? My theory is that someone else was helping them, this story explains it all!
1. At the Bottom of a Well

well hello to all my previous readers and to all the readers reading my fics for the very first time. this story promises to be a seriuosly long one as some of my captive audience members are slowly beginning to understand. (I'm soo evil!)  
This story is as different from the other I have posted that it's almost impossible to believe they come from the same screwed up mind, or I tell myself that at least. But this one has the honor of being the first I've ever written. (the other simply was finished first, which isn't surprising considering how much longer this one is turning out to be.) I started this fic about four years ago, and it still isn't done. And no I'm not saying that I'm posting something unfinished. See I got around that little stipulation of mine that I not post something that hasn't already been completed. You wanna know how? It was so long I decided to break it into parts. That's how. this part was finished and by the time I'm done posting this I should be just about done typing up the second part, then I'll be typing up the third part... but there's still more to write.

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, all the characters of Inuyasha are my play things until my lease runs out sometime in the next millenium. It's good to be delusional.

**At the Bottom of a Well**

A solitary figure made its way up the rain-slicked steps of the Higurashi shrine. Aki sighed, '_What a drab day!_' The only good thing about this wet weather was that Kagome might be more sedate in their lessons. That is, the girl was more likely to pay attention to Aki's vain help to improve her English vocabulary and pronunciation. It wasn't that Kagome didn't seem to like the language or that she suffered a severe lack of ability in learning it, but Kagome just didn't pay attention very well.

Aki shifted the heavy bag hanging across her shoulder. It was filled with things that wouldn't fit in her other bag waiting for her in the car. The camping trip she'd planned for after this little tutorial session would be a good escape from all the things bothering her. She was looking so forward to it that she didn't want to take the time to go back to her apartment afterwards before taking off.

Aki faltered a little as she nearly missed a step. She really didn't need the work as a tutor. She did it mainly to appease her kindly, however nosy, landlord who let her pay rent by tutoring his niece. She could easily afford the rent without tutoring Kagome, but he wouldn't let her pay for it that way. Her landlord worried too much. So what if she never went out or if she was always alone, it's not like she was going to die from lack of human contact. Unfortunately this logic didn't appease her landlord's sense of "the way things should be". This was part of the reason for her trip.

Her landlord thought she was going with a group, but that was merely a fabrication she'd concocted. What he didn't know couldn't upset him, and as long as she returned in time for her tutoring sessions with Higurashi Kagome, there was no harm done.

She felt a drop of water and looked up at her umbrella. She smiled soberly and shook the excess moisture from it. It was a simple black umbrella with a curved handle and a pointed metal end to it. Not that much to look at, certainly not very special looking, she was attached to it nonetheless. It was one of the few things she'd held onto when…when…she frowned. Wasn't good to linger on that. Especially on such a dismal day, right before her session with Kagome, such thinking would only make her morose and irritable.

Aki paused on the last step and ran her fingers through her thick damp mane. Her hair shined through its darkened soggy state. Her mother had cherished the silky thickness of it, having never had such hair herself. '_Bleh! Full of old memories today aren't we?_' she scolded herself quietly. Aki blinked as she saw a small child running towards her at full tilt. The young woman gritted her teeth and braced herself for the impact. But instead of barreling into her as she'd expected, the boy grabbed her arm and dragged her in the opposite direction of his earlier path.

"Wha…? Sota! (For it was he) Slow Down!" She cried trying to keep her feet under her and maintaining a death grip on her umbrella in unconscious reflex. "Wait! Stop! What is it Sota! What's the matter!" Then she realized that even though he was trying to answer her, her Japanese just wasn't up to his childish chattering and supersonic speed. She did catch a few words…

"Hurry…have to stop her… She's going back again…" Sota said a lot more, but Aki didn't catch it.

She nearly fell over a crack in the sidewalk she was so off balance. "Slow down, Sota! Please!" But of course he didn't. Aki was very surprised when their path turned away from her expected goal, the Higurashi House proper. Instead she found herself being drawn someplace she'd never been before.

It was a well house. That's all she registered before she was thrown inside and stumbled down the stair that was right in front of the door with the residual speed of Sota's mad dash on the slippery wet concrete of the grounds. She managed to hang onto her umbrella and not break her neck before she fell into Kagome and both tumbled directly into the open mouth of an ancient well at the end of the steps.

Aki groaned; she ached all over. Falling down a well was not a very pleasant experience, especially when somebody else falls on you. Kagome groaned in concurrence.

"You mind getting off of me?" Aki requested somewhat abruptly. She didn't mean to be rude or terribly hurtful, but Kagome was no lightweight and Aki's ribs hurt.

"Eh? Uh, Yeah!" Kagome got up quickly, or at least tried to. Maneuvering in the small space of the well's bottom inhibited speed. It also made getting off someone more painful to the one being sat on than staying put had been.

Aki gritted her teeth and didn't make a sound as Kagome once again accidentally nailed her in the stomach with her heel. Griping about accidental injury wasn't going to help and letting Kagome know she was causing pain might make it worse in the long run. People generally do more damage when they're _trying_ to be careful.

Outside the well, and not too far distant was everybody's favorite hanyou. You guessed it; it was Inuyasha. And he was doing the usual griping about Kagome and her going back home. Actually, he was becoming rather impatient. He could smell Kagome's scent wafting up from the well. What irritated him right this minute was the amount of time it was seemingly taking her to climb out of the well. True Kagome was no professional well wall climber, but this amount of time seemed ridiculous to his fine sensibilities. In short, he was impatient and being impatient a few moments seemed like forever as it does with small children who've had too much sugar.

"Aki-chan," Kagome addressed her relatively young tutor, " you've lost your glasses.

Aki blinked at her and smiled, "So it seems. Well, they should be around here somewhere. Help me look?" Kagome nodded and together they began combing the damp earth around them.

Oblivious to the events occurring inside the well, Inuyasha was swiftly working himself into a rather annoyed and pissed off state, not unlike his usual mood. '_Where was that girl!_ ' Inuyasha growled deep in his throat. Well, the best way to find out was…you guessed it, to go into the well.

Aki and Kagome bumped heads again. Kagome laughed as she rubbed the aching area of her skull. "This well just isn't big enough for the two of us!" she grinned.

The other girl blinked, "I guess." Aki returned to running her hands over the ground. She really didn't need her glasses; there was only a very slight prescription in one lens. It would be uncomfortable to go without them though. She tended to get a headache if she went without them after wearing them for a while. And that particular set of frames had been her first and only thus far.

Inuyasha took a running leap at the well. Aimed perfectly to miss all the sides. If this were basketball, it would be an awesome free throw… Unfortunately, Inuyasha is no basketball and the well is not a hoop. It wasn't until after he was halfway to the bottom of the well that he realized there were people there. And one of them was Kagome. And there wasn't room for a third adult sized body at the bottom of the well. And he didn't seem to be going anywhere but to the bottom.

Kagome and Aki looked up just in time to let out a yell and push towards the sides in a desperate, yet futile, attempt to avoid direct impact. A lot of yelling and the sound of breaking glass accompanied Dogboy's landing. Aki winced as silence closed around them.  
The sometime English tutor had fallen just as the hanyou landed in the center of the well. The good news was she found her glasses. The bad news was that she found them with her elbow. Thus her glasses were broken and there were a few shiny pieces of glass in her elbow.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome glowered as she began climbing out of the well. "When we get out of this well I'm going to 'osuwari' you into next week!" Of course upon uttering the magic word one very steamed dogboy quickly hit the deck taking poor Aki with him, further embedding the glass in her arm.

Aki yelped at the sudden increased pain but didn't cuss out Inuyasha or Kagome, as she was as yet ignorant of the connection between that specific word and the beads encircling the boy's neck. As far as she knew, he'd simply fallen by accident. She gritted her teeth and levered herself off the well bottom before offering him a hand up. "Here" she said wincing at the pain in her other arm.

Inuyasha looked surprised at the outstretched hand. Were all the people from Kagome's time so stupid? He brushed her hand aside as he leapt out of the well, outstripping Kagome in the process.

Kagome sighed and looked back into the well. She'd expected to be back in the well house. It didn't make sense. Why were they all (Aki included) in the Feudal era? And how did Aki get through the well in the first place? All questions best asked a certain Miko when they got back to town.

Kagome waited as Aki made her slow progress out of the glorified hole in the ground. Her injured arm was giving her trouble. She was nearly halfway up when she fell the first time. It only seemed to get worse after that. It was so bad that Kagome lost patience and climbed back into the well to retrieve Aki's things from her. Finally Kagome couldn't stand it anymore and went to fetch a certain hanyou to take care of the situation.

"You're being a major wuss, you realize that," a transparent man told Aki in the well.

"Eh? Oh, it's you," Aki smiled. "Wasn't sure when you were going to show up."

The ghost growled at her in frustration, "I'd've been there before you got up the shrine steps if you'd walked to the Higurashi's like you usually do!"

"Heheh, still can't keep up with the car, can you?" Aki teased.

The spirit shrugged, " I nearly lost you when you fell in the well. You really should be more careful, you could've broken your neck!"

"You worry too much," Aki replied as she slipped over the lip of the well, and got a good look around. "Where are we?"

"Why didn't you just climb out of the well before, when you had someone here to answer that question?" The fuzzy figure inquired bitingly.

"She didn't help me forget the pain, besides if I do everything the first time, how on earth is it supposed to look like a miracle?" she related with a grin as she replaced her bag and hooked her umbrella in the crook of her good arm. "And, I'm sure you can answer the question just as well as she could, Fred."

"That is NOT my name!" Aki just grinned in response to Fred's outburst. _"It's not my name!"_ He sighed admitting defeat both to the author and to the inevitable, which some would argue is the same thing. " The question is not where, but when."

"Could you be a little less enigmatic?" Aki grumbled quietly.

"Could you call me by my real name?" he countered seriously.

"Sure…just as soon as I feel like it." She shrugged and was reminded blatantly of her wounded elbow, "Guess I'll just have to wait 'til Kagome gets back."

"Oh, sure call _her_ by her real name…" he griped and Aki grinned mischievously.

At that moment Inuyasha returned to the well in a huff, grabbed her by the arm and took off running back the way he'd come. "Ah!" she yelped, feeling a vague sense of deja vue. Only this time, instead of a small boy dragging her around, an adult sized male had nearly yanked her good arm out of its socket and was dragging her around at a much greater speed. "Hey! Slow down! Please! Not so fast! Hold up…" her litany continued and in several different languages as well.

Meanwhile, Inuyasha was complaining under his breath (and her ineffective protests) about whom else but Kagome. The nerve of that girl! Yelling that insufferable dog command to get her way. These beads most certainly gave her too much power over him. He breathed in, using the gifts his demon blood gave him and his gait faltered with surprise.

It wasn't possible, had he lost his demon powers? No, no there were the scents from the village, and there was Kagome's more subtle scent. Inuyasha narrowed his eyes in (get this) thought (!). Why couldn't he find a scent for this girl? Luckily, before he could strain himself, Inuyasha's thoughts were interrupted by their arrival in the village.

"Oh!" Aki wobbled a little once they'd stopped. "I feel like a dog got hold of me and shook me real good."

Kagome laughed, "You're not too far off!" Inuyasha growled. Kagome ignored his surly behavior and gestured for the confused young woman to follow. Kagome lead the way into Kaede's hut. Kagome figured it was the best place to start; at least Aki's elbow would get looked to properly.

"Kagome, are you back already?" Kaede asked somewhat surprised. "Who's this?" noticing the other strangely clad girl entering her abode.

"That's Aki-chan," introducing her, "she fell through the well with me this time." Kagome looked pointedly at Kaede. "Any ideas as to how or why?"

Aki listened quietly; obviously she wasn't expected to understand any of this stuff. " Um, it could be because we were both touching when we fell. And because we fell with such velocity…" she thought aloud. Kaede and Kagome stared at the girl like she'd grown a second head. "Well, I don't _know_. All I know is that I fell into a well and Kagome landed on me! But since then I've gathered that the well can lead to some when (?) else. And from your conversation, I assume that my coming here shouldn't have happened at all." Aki explained at their reaction and sighed, "But it did and here I am. Now can somebody please help remove the glass in my elbow?" Pointedly bringing the subject of conversation to the more pressing issue of blood dripping down her arm.

"What happened here?" Kaede inquired getting a better look at her arm.

"I got landed on," Aki said somewhat amused.

"I've never seen this sort of thing before," Kaede remarked taking in the substance sticking out of Aki's arm.

"It's not too hard to take care of, " Aki stated. "Mainly I just need to get all the pieces out, then we can treat the wound." Kaede nodded and began pulling the shards of glass out. Aki hissed and caught her breath as the fractured lens was slowly being removed. Kagome went and got a bowl to put all the glass in so that nobody would be tempted to hurt themselves by walking on the sharp pieces.

Inuyasha sat in the corner of the hut. He was not simply being sadistic and enjoying the waves of pain play over Aki's features (though I'm sure some authors might find that to be closer to his character). He was simply uncomfortable leaving the old woman and Kagome alone with someone he couldn't smell. Besides, he wanted to know how a mere human was able to elude his "fantastic" demon sense of smell. After all, it wasn't like she was a powerful youkai like he would be someday after using shikon no tama. But she could still be powerful enough to cause harm to the weak mortals. At any other time this wouldn't bother him (heap big youkai warrior) except he still needed Kagome to find the Shikon no kakera. Of course Kagome needed her health, so the old miko would have to stay alive to patch up the stupid girl.

"So Kagome," Aki looked at the girl, " Where am I specifically?"

"Sengoku Japan," Kagome answered. " Can't get more specific than that, because I'm not sure beyond that."

"Sengoku…feudal! Okay so some when was correct after all," Aki commented thoughtfully. "That would put us about 1480-1570. That's a bit of a jump." She winced as the old woman pulled the last of the glass from her elbow. "Okay now we have to scrub the wound…" Kagome blanched; Kaede only nodded. "Have to get ALL the glass out, that means the itty bitty pieces too," she explained, rummaging in her bag for something. "This'll have to do," she said holding a nailbrush out to Kaede.

Kaede nodded and got a good firm grip on Aki's arm before laying into the wound with heavy brush strokes. The girl gritted her teeth and refused to cry out. She stayed like that until the grip on her arm loosened and the scrubbing stopped.

Kagome cleaned the wound with water before sterilizing it with supplies form her own pack. Then Kaede wrapped the tender flesh in an herbal bandage. Aki flexed her arm to check how much the band would restrict movement.

"That should do for now," the miko stated. "It'll have to wait for further treatment until I can find some good thread and more of those herbs. I'm running low."

Aki nodded, "I'll help, it's always fun to learn new things." She smiled looking forward to herb hunting. Kaede only nodded. The girl took off her bag and propped her umbrella against the wall by the door so it could dry.

They all stepped out into the sunshine and it was soon decided that Kagome would go thread hunting while Kaede and Aki went plant gathering. This was decided so that if Aki's arm decided to be a problem (I'm no med-student, don't ask me how/why) Kaede would be on the spot to care for it.


	2. Swimming with umbrellas

Well, hello again to all the people who may or may not have read the last chapter. Really I'm kind of bummed I didn't get any reviews. But I'll get over it! I'm going to keep posting this story because I have a lot of friends hooked on it and I promised them I'd post it some day.

I seemed to forget to put in the last Author's note what I made sure to put in my other story. Most importantly what to do if you think I stole any ideas from other fanfic authors. Like I said in the other story, if this issue arises, contact me and we can compare notes as again I have the dates of when I wrote _each_ chapter of this story and should we find that the ideas were used elsewhere first I'll give credit where credit is due. I won't remove it. As a fanfic author I don't think we can ask for more since by definition we are piggy back riding on someone else's idea to begin with.

Also upon occasion I may make reference to movies or songs I think a large portion of my intended audience would be familiar with. I would like to think my readers understand that I do not own any of them any more than anybody else does who mentions them in passing during everyday conversation. I'd like to think the peoples of the world can be intelligent upon occasion.

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, all the characters of Inuyasha are my play things until my lease runs out sometime in the next millenium. It's good to be delusional.

**Swimming with Umbrellas**

Only one description could fit how this day was turning out. " When it rains it pours." How so? Well first Aki fell through a well that sent her unexpectedly into Sengoku Jidai, a particularly nasty period in Japanese history. Then she broke her glasses with her elbow…before she'd climbed out of the well. Then said elbow had to be treated using the rudimentary medicine of the time and area.

So when Kaede, the only person with knowledge about harvesting herbs, was called away from their joint flora-gathering endeavor not five minutes after Kagome had left them, Aki simply sighed. And her day was just getting started.

Rather than waste the whole effort, the some-time English tutor persuaded the old miko to allow her to continue the mini-expedition. So Kaede gave her a five-minute verbal crash course on which herb they needed, what to look for, and how to harvest it. Then with two minutes worth of directions the healer hurried off to do what she did best… heal.

In less than seven minutes you too can be on your way to gather herbs, however that doesn't mean you'll be overly successful. But for all that, Aki wasn't as bad off as she could've been. Thank goodness for that Taxonomy lab back in college. Taxonomy is the categorization of plants by basic physical characteristics, like a spider plant has narrow fluted commonly bi-colored leaves. It was because of this and this alone that the esoteric language of plant categorization didn't leave her completely confused.

Aki quickly found the little break in the trees outside the village and set to work gathering the elusive little plant. And she was actually doing a pretty good job.

She was very careful to pick only the part of the plant required for the miko's use. The old woman had been fairly adamant about that little aspect of the herb retrieval. It made sense really, why take more of something than you need? Besides, it gave the task that little extra Challenge that kept the job from being too boring and tedious.

Had someone ventured into the little clearing, they might be inclined to feel pity for her, sitting there all by herself in a strange land, But Aki preferred solitude. She'd always been something of a loner. Now there was a reason to widen the gulf between herself and others.

After a space of time, she managed to develop a method to her chaos. That is to say she became rather efficient at plucking the correct plant from the plethora of vegetation present in her selected clearing. What's more, she managed to keep said plant in near the exact condition it was in before she harvested it. Both abilities marked her as something extraordinary.

She could very well have been done and back to the village before Kaede had time to check on her had a certain incident not occurred.

Fred made an appearance.

"The prodigal son returns" he joked mildly. Aki simply rolled her eyes without pausing in her work. "Ever notice how you manage to attack every task just as single-mindedly regardless of how boring it is?" Fred remarked.

Aki shrugged as much in answer as to loosen the muscles of her shoulders. "Well, I do put up with you, don't I?" She reached up and pulled her hair in front of her shoulder, letting the sun soak in the back of her shirt. "Every job or task has its perks, it's just how you look at it. For Instance," she leveled her gaze at him, temporarily leaving her work, "a chore as tedious as this can lose the 'boring' aspect if you think not of the task itself, but what comes after. Or if, like with me, it is a completely new activity and the novelty hasn't worn off."

"It's still boring no matter how you put it." Fred retorted. "And there is no upside to some occupations, like sewer maintenance for example," he continued somewhat smugly.

"There is too," she chuckled. Arrogant ghosts generally are pretty amusing, especially when you can prove them wrong.

"Oh, really? Like what?" he challenged, unwilling to admit loss.

"Well, there's the basic satisfaction of knowing what you do improves the lives of others whether they realize it or not," Aki began. "Also in our world, I guess it's the future, there are technical advances giving the job the luster of a high tech career. Some people thoroughly enjoy the technical aspect of it. Others enjoy the engineering demands of the job as they have to design a system sufficient for the area as it is that will also serve as the area, or city, expands. Frankly it depends on how you think of challenge." She inhaled deeply and continued, "Plus you're not even considering the _chemistry_ involved in the treatment of sewage. After all environmental officials have to make sure that nothing hazardous leaks out into the local ecosystems. I mean just managing the pH levels alone…"

"ENOUGH with the chemistry!" He huffed exasperated and waved off any further proof of her argument. "Trust you to drag in chemistry!" He growled, partly exasperated at being so thoroughly proven wrong, and partly to see if he could goad her into further argument.

Aki, however, was not to be goaded. Having made her point, she turned back to the task she'd momentarily abandoned, causing Fred to acknowledge yet one more change in his friend.

"How come you always pull back?" he asked, somewhat sobered as a cloud passed over the area. "How come whenever you almost seem like you used to be, you throw up those walls and stop yourself?" Aki merely blinked up at him innocently. "Don't give me that! Aki, Don't do that to _me_!" He was suddenly angry and frustrated. "You know you're doing that! You know it!"

"What's the point?" she replied quietly. "Why do you even ask? Things will never be the same and I've got promises to keep. You should know that better than anyone else."

"What will you do then?" Fred asked her. "Cut yourself off from the world and pretend it doesn't exist? All for a promise made to people that died. You know none of us ever wanted that. That's not living, that's hardly surviving!"

"Why don't you…" she began softly when a shout rolled across the area. Aki stood up swiftly letting her harvested produce fall to the ground from her lap. "Fred, where…" another shout rang out, this time more desperate.

She took off before Fred could get a word in.

On the outskirts of the village, near the rice fields, was a little inlet in the banks of the river that watered the rice paddies. The water was shallower and calm here, and in the warmer months the village children would sneak off to play in the clean cool water. The little plot of land was acknowledged to be a safe place and it had always been clear of threatening monsters, both demon and human, as long as the oldest elder could remember.

However, this was not the warm season, the day wasn't even that unseasonably warm. So when it was discerned that the calls for help were coming from this very innocuous location, everyone was stunned. So much so, that the first to arrive from the village was just in time to watch Aki dive under the water barefoot.

"That crazy, stupid…!" could be heard from everyone's favorite dog demon.

Aki, of course, couldn't hear him or the collective dismayed gasp of the crowd as they caught sight of what was in the water. She wouldn't have cared anyway.

The water wasn't warm, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn't let that distract her from the small thrashing body trapped under the surface of the water. '_Thank goodness I've always been good in the_ _water_' she thought dryly as she caught a hold of the child's garment and tugged. '_What the…_' she thought in confusion.

The child's struggles took on the desperate strength of panic and Aki reacted. With a burst of adrenaline she hauled the kid free and swam for the surface. She picked up so much momentum that when she broke the surface, she flew up a few feet. At the height of this semi-flight, Aki threw the poor child further up, not really clear on why, but hoping for the best.

A tentacle snaked around her ankle and yanked her under the water once again with barely enough time to take a breath. The water was murky from all the sediment the mobile beast had kicked up, so Aki couldn't see. It was like thick fog; only without the air and no amount of temperature change was likely to clear it up quickly. She closed her eyes to keep the dirt from them.

Her lungs began to burn, reminding her that she hadn't caught a full breath before being dragged under. Aki began to flail for the surface in the wrong direction. She didn't realize it until her outstretched hand grazed the spongy bottom. Unlike most normal people in such a situation, she didn't panic. She maneuvered herself upright with her legs bunched up underneath her. She took this opportunity to remove the tentacle from her ankle, consequently removing some skin.

Aki kicked off the bottom with both feet exhaling as she headed for the surface, carefully insuring that no time would be wasted once she broke the surface.

The demon, angry that its grip had been released, snaked out and caught her again, this time around the waist. It slammed her back against the river bottom. This time it exerted itself to cause its prey real pain. Her eyes flew open in response.

The girl desperately searched the area around her hoping to find a stick, branch, _anything_ to fight with. She missed a great deal as she flailed blindly about, but finally her grasping hand encountered something that definitely shouldn't have been there. '_What's my…?_' she started the question when the beast finally began contemplating the best way to ingest this particular morsel. That is, it came at her, mouth wide and full of teeth!

She shoved the metal point of her umbrella in the demon's gaping maw while her vision began to spark with from lack of air. She pressed the release button that would open the umbrella's metal arms and a burst of brilliant white light added enough force to the opening umbrella to shred the cloth of the umbrella and the flesh of the demon bearing down on her. But by then, Aki was unconscious and dismissed the light as something cooked up by her oxygen-starved brain.

The demon had released her and retreated in pain. What happened next seemed utterly godlike. A luminescent Aki burst out of the water and floated slowly to shore. It seemed godlike because the girl was upright with her eyes open and the light appeared to be coming from her. The crowd was collectively stunned as well as a bit apprehensive; they took a step back as this strange creature set foot on the bank.

Aki wasn't breathing, nor was she strictly 'conscious'. Thus it should be unsurprising that once she touched Earth, she promptly collapsed in a discomposed pile.

Kagome ran to her downed English tutor and realized there wasn't any respiration going on. Our favorite miko archer in training began to wrack her brain for the information needed to perform CPR. She was becoming increasingly frantic because she kept coming up blank.

Luckily, Aki coughed up all the water and dirt her lungs had in them on her own, making her throat rather sore and gritty in the process. She didn't awaken from her unconscious state, even while her body shook with the fatigues of her recent exertions and the chilled air.

Inuyasha, who'd managed to catch the boy Aki had thrown in midair, paced up behind Kagome a little in awe (though he'd never admit it) of the shaking unconscious human girl. In an uncommon act of gentlemanly generosity, he removed his haori and handed it to Kagome to wrap around the day's mysterious hero.

Kaede, of course, came up right on the heels of the dog demon. As impressed as she was by Inuyasha's strange gesture towards the stranger, the miko was determined not to let it distract her. The old woman efficiently began to assess the damage caused by the village's last brush with an errant demon.

She was not surprised to find the flesh around the girl's middle to be a raw angry red, nor did the missing skin on her ankle strike the old miko as odd. After all, she'd just come from treating the boy. No, what surprised and intrigued her were the burns covering one of Aki's small hands.

Well, whatever the reason, none of the wounds would be worsened if Aki was moved somewhere else, and at the moment that was all that mattered. "She'll be alright," Kaede spoke gruffly. "Let's get her back to the village."

Kagome looked at the older woman with concern in her eyes. "Are you sure it's all right to move…" she began with worry.

"She's just unconscious," Kaede reassured the teen as Inuyasha picked Aki up off the ground, "probably from everything that's just happened."

"Feh!" was all Inuyasha said.

"I can walk, you know," a tired Aki said surprising everybody within hearing range. Inuyasha almost dropped her he was so surprised. "I think I'd rather walk, actually." She wrinkled her nose. It's true that people throughout history didn't bathe much, but it also appeared that demons did so even less. Aki really didn't wish to be mean or rude, but the smell was making her nauseous.

"Inuyasha, put her down," Kagome ordered.

InuYasha had been rather willing to let the girl walk, but after Kagome said something he had to be difficult about the whole thing. "Feh!" he simply scoffed and kept walking. Aki placed the back of her wrist against her mouth. Before it was only the smell, now that Inuyasha was walking differently, in defiance of Kagome, she was getting motion sickness.

"Please, may I walk?" She gasped out somewhat desperately. Getting sick would most definitely not be fun. Especially since she hadn't eaten anything _to _throw up.

Inuyasha felt he was far enough ahead of Kagome that putting the girl down wouldn't look like he was following her orders. He set Aki gingerly on her feet. He was well aware that she had damaged an ankle. He expected her to make some sound of pain, but she didn't.

Aki's ankle screamed at her to rethink walking. The pain was so intense that she had to grab onto Inuyasha's arm and immediately take her weight off her foot. She refused to admit defeat though. She closed her eyes in determined concentration.

Inuyasha watched this very strange girl. She was stranger than Kagome even, and up 'til now, Kagome had been his standard of "Weirdest-creature-to-walk-the-face-of-the-Earth". This new person was hanging on to his arm the way Kagome did when she was about to fall. He almost picked her right back up again when her grip lessened and he realized she was slowly adding weight to her bad ankle. Before too long, she was standing on her own without her makeshift hanyou prop.

But Aki wasn't done yet; she still had to walk. Now everybody else in the world would've called it quits about now. We all have a healthy wish not to damage ourselves needlessly (masochists excluded of course). We also generally try to avoid pain if we can. Aki, however, decided to disregard the inherent programming given her at birth. While she doesn't exactly enjoy pain, she does have a certain disregard for her own well-being and stubbornness, it seems.

"There you go again!" a strange voice near Inuyasha's ear caused the dog type to jump and nearly knock over a precariously balanced Aki.

Besides being nearly knocked over, Aki ignored the apparition. "You know, most sane people in a strange land would run _away_ from screaming people they don't know," the ghost informed her pointedly.

Aki shrugged in response as Inuyasha tried to clobber the spirit from behind. Inuyasha ended up flat on his face. She reached down to help the much heavier male up and instead wound up falling painfully down beside him.

Kagome caught up with them and couldn't for the life of her figure out the chain reaction that had come about to leave Inuyasha and Aki both on the ground. 'Course her logical pathways were somewhat interrupted upon unexpectedly seeing the ghost hovering above the pair. "Ahh!" Kagome jumped causing Inuyasha to jump and fall from his half raised position, this time falling on Aki's bad ankle.

Aki gritted her teeth against the sudden onset of pain and quickly got her own feet under herself to prevent anyone else from falling on the abused appendage. "Fred! You really need to learn not to sneak up on people who don't know you!" she chastised her friend before glancing over to Kagome.

"Eh? You mean all that was me?" Fred began innocently.

"You know damn well it was," she retorted without feeling.

"Well, how the hell was I supposed to know they could see me?" he defended himself. "Nobody back home could."

"Now you know, so please stop making so much noise about it," she sighed and started walking again.

"Damnit! Aki you're doing it again!" the ghost bellowed after her. "Stop pushing yourself! You're gonna end up pushing yourself into an early death!"

Aki turned and glanced sideways at him for a moment before turning to continue on her way. She never said a word as the three of them stared at her slowly disappearing back.

"Hey! The village is the other way!" Fred called, hurrying after her.

Kagome blinked at Inuyasha who blinked back at her in confusion. "What the hell was that all about!" they mumbled in unison before following after the strange girl and her semi-transparent companion.

"You're limping," the ghost nagged.

"Happens," Aki replied absently.

"The hell it does!" he challenged heatedly. Aki just shrugged. "So just where is it you think you have to go? I'll warn you that unless you're attempting to go home I think you're crazy to delay getting back to the village."

"I'm glad you think so." Actually she didn't sound as if it made a bit of a difference to her one way or the other what he thought.

"You know, you really need to lighten up on yourself. It's not your fault we all died…" Fred began and instantly knew he shouldn't have brought it up.

"It's nice of you to say that, however inaccurate the sentiment is," she replied mildly.

It was his turn to sigh, "I really do wish you'd give up this half-baked notion that you're cursed. You know curses don't exist."

"Neither do wells that send you through time, dog demons, nor sea monsters, right?" she chided him.

"Wha- Tha- That's different!" Fred tried desperately to defend his assertion. "The river monster and the dog demon are just – just flukes of nature, and the well… I'm sure the will can be explained by physics. Curses don't exist!"

"Sure they do," Inuyasha interrupted as he and Kagome caught up. He still wasn't sure what to make of being called a fluke of nature. Just what was a fluke anyway?

"Eh? They do?" Kagome burst in a little surprised. Inuyasha rolled his eyes at her obvious stupidity and an argument ensued, involving all three individuals, giving Aki time to 'get away' without harassment.

Then again, having Fred harass her was enough of a distraction that she didn't notice just how much damage had actually been inflicted on her body. She couldn't quite figure out how she could have possibly burned her hand underwater. She also couldn't remember what had actually happened to her umbrella after she'd opened it. Aki shrugged, didn't matter now.

What were the kids doing with it anyway? She distinctly remembered leaving it at that hut Kagome had first taken her to.

'Ah well, kids will be kids,' she thought to herself and dismissed all the underwater events from her thoughts.


	3. NonFriction

You guys must really hate this fic. Still no reviews at all.  
Too bad! I'm going to keep posting it anyway! Nyah!  
Oh and all the characters of Inuyasha are my play things until my lease runs out sometime in the next millenium. It's still good to be delusional.

**Non-Friction**

Limping on a bad ankle and still moving forward in an efficient manner was an art, an art that Aki was fast learning she had never been required to perfect, And she was slowly growing to hate herself for it.

She found that she had to rest often or else her poor maltreated ankle shook with strain. It was quite obvious her body was not enjoying her sudden masochistic streak, even if it did keep her from a situation likely to cause violent dry heaves of disgust. If her choices were to walk in pain wearing somebody's smelly jacket or be carried up close and personal by someone who doesn't bathe much, she'd rather walk and to hell with the pain. Even if all the resting she was required to do made a fifteen-minute stroll three times as long.

Strange as it may seem, the others (who weren't handicapped) never caught up with her until just before she got to her destination. By then Kaede had come upon them wondering where they could've gotten to. She had met up with Inuyasha and Kagome, who were still arguing, just after Fred had parted their company to catch up with the determined English tutor.

"Where is the girl?" asked a somewhat confused miko. "And what is everybody doing way out here? The village is that way."

"Aki wanted to walk," Kagome informed her politely, "and then she went off this way for some reason."

"You let her walk on that ankle? What made you decide to do that?" the old woman questioned the pair. Inuyasha shifted uneasily under her scrutiny.

"She asked," he said uneasily. Since she put it that way, he couldn't fathom what made him decide to grant Aki's request. And once granted, why hadn't he picked her back up at the first sign of pain on her features? If it had been Kagome, he would have just to make her mad, why not with Aki?

Inuyasha didn't like being confused. When he was confused it meant he didn't understand something. People that don't understand things are stupid. He didn't like thinking he might be stupid, so when he was confused he tried to hide it. Usually he hid it with anger, yelling and the like, or action, violence and fighting. In this situation, neither of those concealing devices would work, so he had to do something different. Since his confusion centered on a single individual that shouldn't be walking, it was time to make them stop. Of course knowing Inuyasha, he couldn't just walk up to her, give her a bit of a warning before he promptly swept her off her feet.

Inuyasha probably would've dashed after Kagome's friend to startle the poor girl as he lifted her off the ground without warning or some other rash action of the type… If they hadn't caught up with her just then.

"What are you doing?" Kaede asked the strange girl currently resting against a tree. She was amazed Aki had such incredible stamina and will power.

Aki blinked up at the huffing older woman in surprise and smiled softly. "I'm going to retrieve something is all," she replied quietly. "We weren't all idle when the call for help sounded," she continued, pushing off the tree to finish the first part off her errand and bringing back the herbs she had picked.

Inuyasha, Kagome, and Kaede stood dumbfounded after Aki. "You look like a bunch of caught fish," a voice teased, causing all three of them to jump. "Geez, you sure are a jumpy lot," Fred remarked before following after his friend.

"What!" Inuyasha bellowed before tearing after the ghost as if he could actually do anything to it. Kagome and Kaede were close on his heals as it was going the same way as Aki.

Aki reached the clearing where she'd been gathering the herbs before her little underwater altercation with the water demon.

Nothing ever stays exactly the way you leave it, no matter what your mother says. Something or someone always manages to disturb anything that was left out or behind. And that's exactly what Aki found when she reached the clearing where she had been harvesting herbs before.

There stood over the careful pile of plants she had gathered a little long-eared bunny-rabbit person munching away on her harvest. It was so like finding a child stealing cookies from a cookie jar that she had to chuckle.

Unfortunately, little wild demon chibis of the rabbit variety don't take kindly to people they don't know stumbling across them in the middle of lunch. This particular demon bunny was more wary than some. Funny thing about demon rabbits, they have this unusual ability that most people outside their particular species never encounter, as Inuyasha noisily found out.

"What the hell!" the dogboy exclaimed as his bare foot slipped over the ground unexpectedly. Normally a rather spectacular fall would result such a clumsy occurrence, but Inuyasha remained upright on _no feet_! Even after Kagome collided with him none to gently, neither fell to the ground.

Aki, the ever observant, noticing this sudden interruption in the laws of how things should be, took a test step herself. She likewise did not go anywhere. No forward motion, no downward fall, just an interesting stasis of events. She reached out a hand to grab the tree that stood slightly to her side and missed. No wait… She didn't miss, her hand slid right off. It reminded her of something from her physics class in college. What was required for walking and grasping things? … Friction! You had to have some form of friction to move or to grab onto anything.

Aki looked up at the chibi.

"HA! HA! HA! HA! Thought you could sneak up on me, eh?" the little chibi catcalled obnoxiously to the stationary group. "Well, you can't beat me! I, Hanako the great, have effectively won this battle!"

"You little pipsqueak! Don't even underestimate me!" bellowed a very indignant hanyou. "SANKONTESS-o? Eh?" he looked at his claws stunned that nothing happened. His eyes widened in horror. Perhaps he really was losing his demon powers…first he couldn't catch Aki's scent and now this. He was done for.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Don't you get it puppy?" the little thing snubbed him. "You are powerless within my sphere of influence…" and there followed a rather long and drawn out speech of all the virtues that made up the essence of being the demon known as Hanako.

During this long-winded lecture Aki tried figuring out the holes in this frictionless environment. 'Think! Something is off. What else did the book say about it?' she searched her brain for the answers she needed. 'Can't walk, can't write, can't grip…KNOTS! Knots don't stay tied, clothing unravels!' She looked over at the others and the gesturing bunny demon; all their clothing was still in one piece. Then she looked at who was unable to walk. 'Inuyasha-bare feet. Kaede – bare feet (sandals fell off when she collided with dogboy.) Kagome – probably hasn't tried yet. Me – one bare foot," she murmured to herself. Which would explain why she hadn't moved before, she was on her bare foot. She then turned her attention gauging the movement of anything else that might have been effected. The leaves were moving in straight lines floating at a steady pace almost horizontally. "No air drag and no serious feelings of gravity…"

Aki decided to try something. She bunched her legs up enough for her feet to hover over the ground and shoved them down quickly, like pushing off the side of a pool. She shot up at a bit of an angle, heading straight for the upper branches of the nearest tree. Somehow she managed to turn her body mid-flight and kind of landed on the branch feet first. Wasting no time, she shoved off again aiming for the little cause of all Inuyasha's current woes.

About halfway in her flight she realized that she was going to score a direct hit on the childlike demon… without slowing even a little bit. The impact would very likely kill both herself and the chibi. Aki's eyes widened trying to quickly think of someway to spare at least the little demon standing so oblivious to her own possible end. The English tutor threw out her hand (the one that wasn't burned) and dug deep into her soul, hoping to find something that would prevent the horror likely to happen.

This time her eyes were open. This time she wasn't drowning. This time Aki consciously called it. So when a burst of light leapt from her outstretched hand she was unable to dismiss it. The blast threw her violently back into a tree and the chibi across the clearing. She felt a flash of pain as her back smashed against the firm bark of the sturdy plant and her vision swam briefly at the sound of a sickening crack that was the back of her skull meeting the wood. "That's gonna hurt tomorrow," Aki mumbled before quickly getting back up onto her wobbly legs and racing over to the felled thorn in Inuyasha's pride.

Aki scooped Hanako up as if she were a small child, her eyes wide with fear and worry. "Please don't tell me I killed it," she begged softly. She raised her hand to brush aside the hair straggling across the little demon's forehead (subconsciously checking for breath) when the rabbit demon awoke abruptly and chomped down on one of Aki's soft outstretched fingers.

Aki smiled slowly in relief, despite the stabbing knives of pain in her finger. Her eyes softened and Hanako stared at her with disbelief written all over her petite face. "You're alright," Aki breathed carefully, "I'm glad."

The strange demon's eyes widened even further, if it's even possible. Hanako simply could not believe it. This strange human woman was worried. About her, Hanako, forsaken of her clan and outcast of her own species. What's more, the woman didn't get mad when Hanako bit her. That alone served to make her jaw slacken and she released the stranger's finger. What's with this human?

Aki smiled reassuringly at the little demon a moment longer as she reclaimed her now terribly abused hand, before she promptly and rather indecorously passed out.

By now, everyone had discovered they could move normally again. And there were a few things that some of them wanted to do to a certain impertinent rabbit demon.

"Come here you little brat! I've got a fist with your name on it!" Inuyasha advanced on the little demon still partially trapped under the unconscious weight of Aki.

"Inuyasha, stop," Kagome yelled. She didn't think the situation actually required further violence as Aki appeared to have effectively diffused the problem. She was more worried for the unconscious girl than about the fight that almost was. "Kaede, do you think Aki's okay?"

"I am not sure," the elderly woman replied. "I will have to examine her to find out, and I can't do that properly out here."

Hanako blinked, they weren't going to hurt her? They weren't mad? They seemed to only be worried about their friend. Aki? Is that this woman's name? Hanako looked up into the face of the human leaning over her. She looked beautiful in the rabbit demon's opinion. She also looked exhausted, and even asleep; her face was lined with pain. The chibi immediately felt a stab of guilt that she was the cause of this pain.

"Inuyasha, do you think you could take Aki back to the village before you beat up Hanako?" Kagome asked breaking into the chibi's thoughts. Hanako frowned, so much for not hurting her. She suddenly didn't want Aki moved from her place over her.

"I agree. Inuyasha, you can always bother the little demon later, Aki needs to be taken care of now," the miko added. "Though I think Aki might object to you actually hurting the little thing."

"Feh, whatever," Inuyasha grumbled, but bent to pick up Aki anyway. Hanako reached up and latched onto the woman's shirt. "Hey! Let go of Aki, you little snot!" the hanyou growled. "Let her go, you little moron!"

Hanako gave her own little growl, ignoring every instinct that screamed for her to step down and flee. Rabbits as a rule were not aggressive. Their powers were more of the flight variety than the fight kind. They were not usually dominant. That does not mean they are necessarily weak. "I will not. How do I know I can trust her with you? You might hurt her, you're so stupid!" she yelled at him.

Inuyasha blinked. She couldn't trust him. The HELL! She was the untrustworthy one not he. "Oi, you're the one who attacked us! Not the other way around, we're the ones who can't trust you!" he growled back.

"You're a male, so naturally you can't be trusted with anything female! You might try something vulgar!" she shouted back. "Don't worry, my pretty, I'll not let the evil boy hurt you!" Hanako patted Aki's soft cheek gently. Inuyasha blushed a rather interesting shade of fire engine red and spluttered.

"Oh brother!" Fred spoke up from out of nowhere. "Look if you're really worried about it why don't you follow him to the village so Kaede can take a look at Aki before she wakes up out here and insists on walking back on her own."

"The ghost's right, Aki needs to be taken care of and it can't be done out here. None of us can carry her, so Inuyasha is gonna do it for us," Kagome assured the Rabbit. "I'm pretty sure Aki will want to make sure you're all right when she wakes up."

Hanako thought for a moment. Technically she was strong enough to carry the lovely Aki. However her shorter stature would render such an undertaking rather difficult to both protect and carry. She nodded her head; Inuyasha could carry the desirable human. She would guard. "Alright. But if you make one move to do anything other than simply carry her, I'll find a way to hurt you." she warned the dogboy. "And By the way, I did not attack you, you snuck up on me."

"We did not!" Inuyasha growled back trying to settle Aki in a stable position to be carried back to the village. "We were following Aki."

"A likely story, you were spying on her more like, you hentai!" Hanako growled in return.

"As if! Kagome was with me."

"So? Girls can be hentai's too, it's just not a required characteristic of her sex."

"Now wait just a minute, leave me out of this," Kagome cried.

"Not all guys are like that," Fred challenged at the same time.

"Grr! I meant Aki knew we were there, she's known we were following her the whole time. And you're the hentai that keeps suggesting all these perverted things!" Inuyasha amended.

"I'm not perverted, I'm just world wise. Besides the love between two women is the purest love of all!" the rabbit demon returned with stars in her eyes.

"Don't tell me you're one of those," Fred grumbled. "Look, could we please just get what Aki came for and get her back to the village?"

"One of what?" Kagome asked innocently.

Fred just looked at her, "You can't be that innocent. You're a teenager of the future. They have every kind of partnership in the open. Girl-girl, boy-girl, boy-boy, etc. Think about it."

"oh, OH!" Kagome's eyes widened. "That's what you mean!" Then she looked at Hanako. "You don't mean to say that she's…" Fred only nodded. "No way!" her eyes widened, "She's too young."

Hanako didn't quite get where their conversation was going, hell she didn't even know where it started. She did however understand that last bit. "I'll have you know I happen to be older than your insignificant little life is likely to be," she huffed indignantly.

Kagome blinked, "But…but you're so tiny!"

The rabbit rolled her eyes, "Well excuse me if my species is naturally on the small size! And I'll have you know that I'm tall for my kind!"

Kagome blinked again, Hanako was nearly a head shorter than herself. Weird. To think, Hanako would never be taller than most human eleven year olds. If that was Kagome, she would really have some kind of a complex.

Aki groaned in her sleep causing Inuyasha to tense. "Uh, Kagome?"

"What?" She responded absently, still pondering the many shapes and sizes that demons took.

"Could we please start heading to the village now? She's moving," he said softly. Kagome's eyes widened, was Inuyasha worried? Over Aki? There were a lot of weird things going on today. The god of all that is rational must be taking the day off.

"Sure, sure," she replied absently again deep in thought.

"Don't forget the herbs Aki harvested!" Fred reminded them.

"Eh?" Kagome blinked and looked around the clearing. "There they are. Looks like somebody was eating them," she stated absently.

Hanako blushed, so that's what brought them to the clearing, the leafy plants that she'd found so tasty. Oh dear, perhaps she really had been responsible for the whole thing just moments ago. She glanced over at the dogboy that was slowly growing very impatient. No way was she ever going to admit that out loud to him though.

"Oi, why's your face so red?" Inuyasha asked Hanako.

She in turn blushed more deeply, before growling at him in frustration at her own embarrassment. "Shut up!" she demanded. And he smirked, oh how he smirked the insufferable bastard, that evil, no good cur, that horrible MALE.

"All right, c'mon you two," Kagome called to them like the children they certainly acted like. Sometimes she felt like she was Inuyasha's mother.

"You should probably wake Aki up as soon as you're back to Kaede's hut," the ghost suggested. "She did manage to hit her head pretty hard back there. She might have a concussion."

"Yeah, I nearly forgot about that," Kagome agreed. "She's only been here a few hours and she's already received a lot of damage."

"Gomen," Hanako said sadly.

"Hmm? What for?" Kagome asked slightly confused.

"It's my fault, I hurt Aki."

"Nonsense. Besides that's only part of it, Aki was hurt before you ever saw us."

"What do you mean?"

"Aki just fought the water demon in the river."

"She did what!"

"Will you two be quiet? You're bugging Aki," Inuyasha yelled at them annoyed. He was just beginning to realize the human woman in his arms impressed him. And he still couldn't catch her scent even though he held her this close. What was she, some kind of miko? Naw, that wasn't it, the look on her face when she called that power was pure and utter shock, definitely not the look of a powerful miko. Aki was an enigma, one he intended to figure out so long as the opportunity provided itself.

"Ah! I saw that! You were looking at Aki funny!" the defender of the female honor reeled its ugly head.

"I was NOT!" he growled in his defense.

"Yes you were!"

"Was not!"

"Were too!"

"Was not!"

Hanako smirked, "Oh yeah? Then what were you doing?" Inuyasha blushed, he'd been planning to discover all of Aki's secrets…but he couldn't tell them that. "Aha! You're blushing! All the more evidence that I'm right! You were looking at her weird and you were thinking something perverted you Hentai!"

"Hanako, will you please lower your voice? We're almost to the village and you're causing a scene!" Kagome pleaded.

"I will not, until Aki is safely away from the perverted thoughts of that MALE!"

"Hanako, you're incorrigible," Aki's quiet voice silenced the demon bunny, her voice full of tired amusement. "You do realize that your shouting is only likely to embarrass yourself, right?"

"Aki, you're awake," Kagome said relieved.

"Of course I am, you didn't actually think I could sleep through all that did you?" the woman sighed. "Could you put me down? I can walk."

"Sorry woman, not this time. Kaede yelled at me for the last time. Besides, it's not good for you to walk on that ankle," Inuyasha firmly denied her request. Aki sighed, nausea it is.

"Put her down! She obviously doesn't want you to carry her!" Hanako yelled. Then she lowered her eyes, "ah, I see your game, you intend to carry her around against her will because it gives you an excuse to touch her!"

Inuyasha blushed scarlet, "That's _not_ it!"

"Well no matter, you can't have her because SHE'S MINE!" Hanako declared with finality before walking matter-of-factly into the little hut they had finally stopped in front of. Leaving the dogboy and two females from the future with their jaws in the dirt.


	4. Insanity, Table for Two

Still no reviews. Hmm, Either my writing is just so awesome nobody can think of anything to describe its magnificance, or you're all too lazy to hit the review button. I'm betting on the first because nobody's going to review to tell me any different! Nyah!

All the characters of Inuyasha are my play things until my lease runs out sometime in the next millenium. It's good to be delusional. Oh and if you spot somebody you've never seen in the anime, that's mine.

**Insanity, Table for Two**

Denial is a wonderful thing, too bad Mother Nature made it almost impossible to live under its influence for very long as the small group crowded into Kaede's tiny hut soon discovered. There was no getting around the sudden possessive light in the new demon's bright eyes.

Poor Inuyasha was finding there was no living with Hanako in such cramped quarters, her deranged evaluation of all things _male_ left him totally deprived of just sitting sulkily in his own little corner. The Rabbit refused to accept him or his characteristic behavior as anything innocent or mundane. And she was annoyingly vocal about her opinion of what was the only possible reason for him to be sulking in the corner of a hut that also housed three females. The poor boy hadn't realized there were so many different stages of annoyance, anger, confusion, and chagrin. Hell, he didn't even know one could blush so many different shades of red based solely on the mixture of all the aforementioned feelings. It was enough to make a person wish he were once again pinned to a certain tree, blissfully unconscious of the world around him.

"Hanako, leave him alone will you?" Aki requested softly. Since She had finally been bandaged, stitched, examined, and re-clothed in something dry, they had discovered she was rather adept at curbing the long-eared chibi's wrath. Hanako would do just about anything for Aki. Sadly for Inuyasha, the effects were usually short-lived.

Kagome smiled widely as she quietly pretended to pay attention to the aged miko. She didn't mean to be rude, truly, but what the others were doing was just so much more interesting. After all, it wasn't everyday you saw a boy who normally gave you a hard time turn so many impossible shades of crimson. Despite the amusement she got out of watching Inuyasha squirm uncomfortably under Hanako's ridiculously unfair accusations, she had to admit it was getting old. She sighed before redirecting her attention to where it should have been to begin with, Kaede.

"I'm not sure why the well didn't send you back when Inuyasha jumped in," the old Miko was thinking out loud.

"Perhaps it was because Kagome and I were already in the bottom of it," Aki suggested during a brief respite from calming the wrath of Hanako.

"Maybe," Kaede nodded.

"Either that, or the well's just plain sealed up and won't let us go home," Kagome mumbled quietly.

"If that's true, then that's our lot," Aki turned towards Kagome and the elderly miko. "In which case, the best we can do is continue to move forward and make a place for ourselves here."

"Don't worry, lovely Aki, I will always be there to take care of you!" Hanako interjected and was ignored.

"I suppose so," Kagome nodded with determination in her eyes.

"This is all speculation, nothing's been determined as yet," Aki reminded the high school candidate. "Besides, who's to say that it won't work for you? Right now, all we know for sure is that it normally wouldn't have worked for me to come here. It's more likely the well won't send me back to our customary time without similar circumstances being used here." Aki paused and sighed, "In which case, I'd be just as happy not to be flung into the well and have Kagome land on me."

"I doubt the well requires all that for you to travel through it," Kaede reasoned.

"Well, I wouldn't mind the trip so much if that were true," Aki laughed dryly.

"I hope the well is Broken!" Inuyasha growled from his corner that was receiving more and more of Hanako's misguided attention.

Kagome's sharp "Inuyasha" was drowned out by Hanako's more volatile outburst. "I knew it. You want to keep my Aki here against her will so that you can do perverted things to her," and then the demon bunny took a deep breath to begin a tirade that had Kagome's ears burning, Inuyasha cowering in the corner, and Aki alternating between being unable to imagine the logistics of the acts that Hanako mentioned and knowing full well how they were accomplished. Fred, who'd been silently observing in the background, found the whole tirade fairly amusing and didn't bother stifling his laughter.

After Aki had decided everybody had heard quite enough, she decided to silence their new…acquaintance. "Hanako, that is quite enough! None of us really want to know what you think Inuyasha wants to do to me," Aki went on. "And who's to say I wouldn't be able to take care of myself if the problem ever arose?"

"Besides I have Inuyasha taken care of should he ever decide to get out of hand," Kagome calmly told the near hysterical youkai rabbit.

"So? I already know you're on his side! Besides you're both only human. What could you possibly do to ward off a perverted hanyou?" Hanako retorted incredulously. "Hanyou may be weaker than the weakest of youkai, but they are still stronger than any human!"

"I am _not_ weak!" two voices cried in unison.

Aki joined Kaede in a tired sigh.

"Well you can't hope to be as powerful as I," Hanako returned smugly.

"Yeah, yeah," Inuyasha growled mockingly, "'I am the Great Hanako!' Pah!"

Aki had to hide a smile at that; it was a rather lame line, especially coming from a chibi looking demon.

"You dare insult me! After I was kind enough to spare your Life!" Hanako's eyes lit up with fury.

"You didn't spare anybody's life you mad Long-eared rat!" Inuyasha growled back, all of his prior annoyance spilling over in his rage.

"Hanako! Simmer down or get out!" Aki yelled over both as she stood on her bad ankle, planted her hands on her hips and glared at the newest addition to their strange company. "There will be no fighting in Kaede's hut! She deserves better treatment for her kindness to us!"

Hanako underwent a complete and total transformation. Where flames had been in her eyes, were now stars gleaming. Where fumes had been emanating from her ears there now hovered hearts, shining and sparkling. From the frightening darkness of an enraged Hanako came the overwhelming brightness of the demon rabbit overjoyed. "You said _us_," Hanako cuddled up to Aki's chest and started twirling her finger in circles on the female's stomach.

Aki made a long suffering sigh and took a step back only to find herself pursued by the amorous intentions of her new female companion.

"Um," Fred began watching his friend. "I don't think that was the reaction you were going for."

Aki would've glared at him, but was too busy evading Hanako and trying not to wind up trapped against a wall.

"Be careful," Kaede began, "you don't want to jar that ankle and make it-" here Aki tripped and fell and Hanako landed on top of her, "worse."

Hanako giggled happily sprawled on top of her chosen woman. "Really Aki," the rabbit youkai pretended to blush," I didn't think you'd want to do this in front of others, but if you do I have no objections!" Hanako reached up to plant a firm kiss on Aki's mouth only to find a firm hand shoving her away by the face.

Aki had jarred her ankle and landed hard sending sparks exploding across her vision. The only clear thought in her mind was the strong desire to curl up in a ball and not move again, ever. When she found her inability to do so was caused by something on top of her, she shoved the weight of it away blindly and turned the opposite direction.

"Oh dear," Kaede breathed as she went to check on the poor time traveler. The girl ducked her head away from the old miko's searching touch. "Shh, child," the old woman cooed softly, "shh. Let me see what you've done to yourself." Gently Kaede coaxed her in to looking up at her and sitting up. It appeared the fall had caused the female to bite her tongue rather badly and knocked her head pretty hard. "I imagine you're wishing you had stared home this morning."

Aki shook her head carefully, afraid to set the boulders in her head to rolling around in her skull. "No," she said around her slightly swelling tongue.

Kaede blinked in surprise, "but…"

"No, Kaede," Fred explained for his friend, "Aki gave up wishing to change the past years ago. Such wishing would've only driven her crazy." The ghost gave a ghostly sigh, "besides, if she'd stayed home, her landlord would've bugged her about not tutoring Kagome and that she needs to get out more and so on and so forth." Fred shrugged, "Actually, at this point, the physical pain might be more comforting than you think."

The ghost looked away from the old miko's questioning look, it wasn't his place to explain that part of Aki.

"Oi, wench, what was that for!" Inuyasha bellowed, barely recovered from his latest face plant.

"Osuwari!" Kagome glowered. "My name is Kagome! Use it!"

Aki raised an eyebrow in confusion as Hanako started ribbing the hanyou about his current pose.

"That's the handle Kagome has on the boy," Kaede explained quietly. "It's to keep her safe from him."

"She just tells him 'Osuwari'?" Aki asked carefully around her pained tongue and was shocked when Inuyasha slammed into the ground once more.

"KAGOME!" the frustrated dogboy hollered.

"I didn't say it that time!" the girl cried in confusion.

"Indeed she didn't," Kaede called to the rest. "But," she added more quietly in thought, "she is the only one it should work for."

"What's that you're mumbling, old hag?" Inuyasha demanded.

"I said Kagome didn't subdue you that time," Kaede reiterated, "Aki said it."

"What! Oh hell no!" Inuyasha roared. "I'm not going to put up with this if just anybody can do it!"

"That's just it," Kaede replied calmly. "Aki should not have been able to use the spell."

"But she did," Fred stated. "She said 'Osuwari' and Inuyasha plummeted to the ground."

Inuyasha cringed at the word, but nothing happened.

"Maybe you have to be female and alive," Hanako suggested licking her lips at the delicious possibility that _she_ could use the spell. "Here let me try, Osuwari!"

Again, Inuyasha breathed a sigh of relief when nothing happened.

"Well perhaps you have to have miko powers to do it," Fred thought out loud. "Why don't you try it Kaede?"

"That would make sense since she's the one who put the necklace on him in the first place," Kagome nodded. "And both her and Aki have miko powers. Go ahead and try it Kaede."

"Don't you even," Inuyasha began, their logic making too much sense in his mind.

"Osuwari," the old miko said without feeling and took a sip from her tea.

Again nothing happened, "Maybe it was just a fluke," Fred began and glanced at Aki, "or perhaps it only works for time travelers?"

Aki sighed and rolled her eyes. Did it really matter at this point?

Inuyasha exploded, "It had better be a fluke!" He then proceeded to crack his knuckles threateningly at Kaede.

"Osuwari," Aki mumbled in annoyance.

Hanako and Kagome scrambled to get out of the felled Inuyasha's way to the ground. "So it wasn't a fluke," Fred concluded just as calmly as if Inuyasha hadn't been plastered to the floor in front of him.

"Guess not," Kagome mumbled.

"Then I guess you really do have a handle on the pervert," Hanako smirked as she stepped on the back of Inuyasha's Head with malicious intent. "How pathetic! A hanyou bested by a single word, and from a human no less!"

Inuyasha was slowly winning back the right to move. As he patiently awaited his release from the spell, his stream of invectives increased both in number and intensity.

"It would appear that Aki has somehow subverted the spell," Kaede said.

"But how?" Kagome asked. "How could Aki do anything like that without knowing how?"

"How indeed," the old miko voiced pensively. As far as she knew there was no way to subvert the spell. The elderly woman hunkered down for some serious thought.

Meanwhile Fred managed to drag Hanako into an argument about her favorite hot topic, the debauchery of males. And Kagome just had to watch because none of Hanako's threats made Fred batt an eyelash. After all, you can't hurt the dead.

Inuyasha continued to fume in his forgotten crater on the floor until he sensed Aki quietly sit next to him. She reached over timidly and skipped the ears he'd suspected she would molest. Girls had this funny thing about his ears, but Aki didn't even pause over them. Instead she ran a hand over his silver hair.

He was about to yell at her, he wasn't a dog! Petting just didn't sit well with him, but she spoke before he could.

"I'm sorry, Inuyasha," he could hear her swallow with difficulty. "I didn't realize what would happen when I said that." He could clearly sense her pain as she spoke around the abused muscle in her mouth. Her language was drawn out and slow as she forced her mouth to form the words clearly and correctly.

If this had been Kagome, she'd have been crying. If this had been Kagome, she wouldn't have bothered and he wouldn't have expected it. But this was Aki, who was turning out to be an entirely different breed all together.

"Keh," Inuyasha said as he was finally allowed to sit up. He moved slowly, enjoying her caresses on his hair despite himself. "That was nothing compared to when Kagome says it," he offered. It was as close as he would get to saying 'apology accepted'. "Nothing worth wasting your breath over." He'd never been so close to offering unsolicited concern.

She smiled gently and withdrew her hand.

He was sorry at the loss of her touch, but refrained from following Aki's retreating hand. He was Inuyasha! He didn't like to be touched! Even less so by humans!

"Eh!" Hanako hollered. "I saw that!" the little demon declared in the aftermath of her outburst.

Fred blinked futilely in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Kagome was also confused at the abrupt change of focus Hanako had performed. At least she was until she spotted who the youkai bunny was now bellowing at. "Not again," Kagome grumbled with a sigh.

"You were looking at Aki weird again!" the diminutive female yelled at the hanyou. "Whatever perverted things you were thinking had better just stop RIGHT NOW! Aki's mine! Didn't you hear her say 'us'?" the rabbit continued rather incorrigibly. "You don't even have a chance, so you might as well forget whatever it was you were thinking!"

Inuyasha had quite truly had enough; his fuse and his patience could only last so long. The hanyou leapt to his feet with a growl. "Now listen here you, Long-eared rat!" Inuyasha began in anger. "I have not now nor ever thought _perverted_ things about your precious Aki! Even if I had, it's none of your business as my thoughts belong to me! Aki is _not_ yours nor has she consented to share any kind of relationship with you! Damnit! And when she said 'us' she was including Kagome and me, not just you, you stupid red eyed freak of nature!"

Hanako exploded, it seemed Inuyasha had hit a nerve. "How dare you call me a freak of nature!" Hanako's body shook in her fury. "What would you know of nature, _hanyou_? And how dare you even assume to know what Aki was thinking or meant? Don't even think that your pitiful male brain could possibly begin to understand Aki or myself!"

"Stop it!" Aki whispered painfully. She was tired of their fighting, frustrated with the subject of it. She was developing quite a headache and all the noise certainly wasn't helping.

"Don't talk down to me just because you have more demon blood than I do! There ain't a damn thing you can do that I can't do better," Inuyasha bellowed.

"Oh yeah? Then how come I got the drop on you back in the forest, hmm?" Hanako retorted.

Fred began to sing under his breath, "Anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you…"

Aki rolled her eyes at the apparition; really his humor could get awfully tiresome.

Suddenly, blessed silence descended upon the hut. Kagome and Kaede stepped quietly out from behind the two youkai that now stood frozen mid argument.

"As pressing as I'm sure this argument is," Kaede began gruffly, "the rains have only stopped for a short respite. I feel we should use this time to gather supplies before they start up again."

"What've you done to the 'Moron Twins' over there?" Fred asked slightly curious.

"Beads of stasis," the old miko replied holding one up for the ghost to see. "They'll both be able to fume and think to their heart's content, but they will not be moving unless we move them or remove the bead from their person."

"You did all that with just one bead?" Fred asked in wonder.

"Mmm, one bead a piece," Kagome corrected.

The old miko nodded, "A full necklace would turn them in to statues permanently." The ghost stared in fascination.

"What needs doing, Kaede?" Aki asked quietly.

"You," the old woman began, "need to stay put. Your wounds need rest, not more strain." The old miko held up a hand to stave off the part-time tutor's protest. "Kagome and I can handle the tasks just fine."

"She won't just sit still you know," Fred informed the miko. "And I'm incapable of doing anything about it." The ghost apologized for being completely intangible.

"So you may as well let me help," Aki happily declared.

"May I make a suggestion," Fred offered and pointed at the frozen demons.

"We just silenced that noisy duo!" Kagome objected.

"Well, think about it seriously," Fred continued seriously. "An argument can't be won if no one's arguing back and Aki can control one or the other before they get too out of hand, but not to the point where they won't make _her_ sit still," the ghost explained. "Just release one of them to baby-sit trouble here and we're all good."

"It does seem to be a sound plan," the miko started slowly.

"But which to set loose?" Kagome asked thoughtfully.

"Well," Fred broke in, "my vote's on Inuyasha. He has yet to cause Aki any harm, and she does have control over the rosary on his neck."

"True," Kagome nodded. "We also know him a little better," the girl looked to Kaede.

"Inuyasha it is then," Kaede nodded.

"Hey, don't I get a say in this?" Aki's pained voice broke in.

"You get a say when you've gone another 24 hours without hurting yourself some more," Fred replied smugly and Aki hmphed in annoyance.

"Kagome," the miko called and motioned toward the hanyou.

The ninth grader took a deep breath and stepped behind Inuyasha. She took another steadying breath before reaching up and removing the little bead from the back of his collar.

The change was immediate. Inuyasha quickly turned to lay into the girl something fierce when the dreaded word popped out of her mouth.

"We need you to watch out for Aki while Kaede and I run some errands," Kagome informed him while he was still down. "Don't try anything funny! Aki can say 'osuwari' just as quickly as I can." Kagome turned to exit the hut, "oh and leave Hanako alone or I'll have Kaede make that necklace of stasis beads."

Kaede glanced at Kagome. The girl obviously had no idea what kind of an undertaking making such a necklace would be. The miko held her tongue; it would appear the hanyou didn't either. Kaede maneuvered the youkai rabbit against the back wall before heading out of the hut herself.

Aki kicked petulantly at the floor with her good foot. She didn't want people worrying over her, didn't want them to be nice! It was too easy to care about nice people and she didn't want to care. Caring lead to pain. It was an inevitable conclusion in her case. Fred was haunting proof of it.

He was also evilly encouraging the kindness of others. Spiteful ghost! She got up to go find the _Casper_ wanna-be and give him a piece of her mind. A clawed hand planted itself firmly on her shoulder and pressed her back into her previously seated position.

Aki didn't bother to glance behind her, she knew who it was. Nobody else was in the hut that could move.

She futilely kicked the floor again with her frustration.

"Knock that off," the gruff voice of the hanyou spilled over her shoulder, his hand still on her shoulder.

Aki rolled her shoulder to rid herself of the unwanted restraint. Inuyasha merely growled in response. "I'm not going anywhere so let go," she demanded darkly.

The dogboy just narrowed his eyes at the back of her head and tightened his grip. This female had a penchant for getting him in trouble.

Aki really didn't like being told what to do; she hated even more being put on a leash. There was only so much a grown woman would stand for. So she did what any woman in her place would do. Aki latched onto Inuyasha's clawed pinky finger and hauled back towards his wrist. After his grip on her shoulder inevitably loosened, she turned her back away from him and glared.

"What was that for wench!" Inuyasha grumbled and cracked his fingers, much too proud to rub the offended digit. Then he blinked and realized something, this wench had managed to break his hold. How could a mere human do that? "Oi! How'd you do that?"

"Do what?" Aki asked carefully. She was hoping he wasn't asking for some drawn out conversation, her tongue kind of hurt.

"Break my grip, no human should be able to do that," Inuyasha growled, he hated explaining himself. The world should just _know_ what he meant.

"It's a matter of leverage," Aki replied shortly. At Inuyasha's confused look she sighed and continued, "Based on the structure of the hand there are two ways to break a person's grip. One is to knock the thumb out of the way, fairly difficult to achieve with the way your grip was situated on my shoulder. This leaves the pinky finger, the most vulnerable and weak of the fingers. Yank the pinky towards the wrist and the rest of the fingers will follow. On a human you can easily break the finger, the pain of which will blind the would-be captor giving the victim time to flee."

Inuyasha's mouth hung open. "Does everybody know that in your home?"

Damn, he was asking for a conversation. Aki looked away and swallowed carefully, "No, everybody doesn't know, but every girl that lives in a big city should."

"Does Kagome know?" the hanyou had to know. It would be bad if he went to steal the Shikon no tama when it was put back together only to find out that Kagome knew human ways to circumvent his efforts effectively.

"I hope so," Aki answered mildly, "there is no truly safe place in the world, no matter which one it is. Monsters will always lie in wait, hiding in the most innocuous of places."

Inuyasha really didn't understand what she was talking about so he didn't say anything. The hanyou's eyes chanced to wander upon the frozen rabbit youkai. He just couldn't resist the smirk that parked on his face. The miniscule movement from Aki's direction drew his wandering attention back to the face of the woman he was supposed to be watching. A heated glare emanated from the wench in his direction and the hanyou shifted uncomfortably under it.

If you were to ask him, this movement was aggressive in nature, not defensive. He had _not_ just remembered that Aki could bloody well slam him through the center of the earth. Inuyasha had _not_ just remembered Kagome's threat of turning him into a dogboy statue. Nope, the threats had no affect on him what so ever. Keep telling yourself that Inu…

Aki's glare lost some of its heat as she watched the boy squirm. She didn't like for people to feel threatened by her ability to speak. She could understand his anger and fear of someone else being able to use the spelled beads at his throat. "Sorry," she said softly.

"Eh? What are you going on about now?" Inuyasha asked in confusion.

"I apologize for being able to use the spell," Aki clarified gently.

"Keh! Are you still stuck on that?" secretly the hanyou was surprised. It wasn't that often Inuyasha met someone willing to help others without gaining anything for it. Especially when it came to youkai and partial youkai. What's more, she apologized to him for something she had no prior knowledge of and no control over. "I'm not some weak human, so don't worry about it!"

Aki raised an eyebrow; pain was pain no matter how much. "Still, it must bother you some," she didn't mind talking so much now that she'd decided to ignore the pain. Pain? What pain? She didn't feel no stinkin'-ow! Better not over do it.

"Keh," was all the hanyou would say.

"Tell you what, I'll promise not to say the 'word' unless it is to save your life and all other options have been eliminated," Aki suggested earnestly, "and you won't have to worry about it."

Inuyasha almost said 'keh' again but stopped himself. Aki could invoke the spell, did that mean she could remove it? Hot Damn! This just might be the best piece of luck to ever fall into his lap! "Like I would actually trust the promise of some human! Hah! Do I look stupid to you?" the hanyou was too focused on implementing his plan to notice the flash in the woman's eyes. "I'll tell _you_ what, if you feel that badly about it, why don't you just take this damn necklace off, then we both won't have anything to worry about."

Aki's mouth tugged up on one side. This guy wasn't too bright if he actually thought she would help him after he insulted her word and species. And since he hadn't accepted her promise, she wasn't bound by it. "Osuwari," she said calmly. "I really think you should talk to Kagome about that as it _is_ her spell and I'm not necessarily sure I could remove it. Osuwari. Even if I could, I don't want to even try after you managed to insult me twice in one breath. For your information, I'm living proof that I keep my promises," she said cryptically, "and generalizing my trustworthiness based solely on my species is very narrow-minded and stupid of you as now – osuwari- I will not be nice about my treatment of you in the future." Aki paused for breath, really enjoying the effect of the spell on the hanyou. "And if you are wondering why I am saying 'osuwari' without restraint, the opposite of what I said I would do a moment ago, it is because you did not deign to accept the offered promise thereby leaving me perfectly free to withdraw the offer and say 'osuwari' as much as I like." She finished rather smugly, "Now don't you feel dumb."

Inuyasha really did feel rather stupid. Not only had his attempt at freedom failed; it backfired rather painfully. But he couldn't feel angry about it. He could perfectly understand her reasoning as he had heard her full explanation. By the time she was done his ears were flattened to his head and his body ached.

On the plus side, he was in nowhere near as much pain as he would be if Kagome had delivered the same speech. Aki hadn't been truly angry with him. Insulted, yes. Annoyed, yes. But there was no anger, no hate. Inuyasha realized that if he'd said something similar to just about anyone else, he would now be faced with a new enemy.

Inuyasha heaved a dejected sigh when he was allowed to sit up. Man he hated thinking he was in the wrong!

"You know, you really should apologize," Aki's voice broke the silence.

"Like I would ever apologize to a mere human that sat me!" he would've gone on at length but she cut him off.

"Not to me stupid! To Hanako," she said evenly.

"What? To that crazy rabbit? Are you out of your mind!" Inuyasha all but exploded.

"Everybody has buttons to push and lines you don't cross," Aki continued ignoring his outburst coolly. "You said something that greatly upset her."

"She had it coming!"

"Just like you deserved to be called hanyou and weak?" Aki asked. Dogboy snapped his mouth shut on what he was going to say, both in anger and frustration. "Some levels of teasing are fine, but don't get carried away. You shouldn't have called her a freak of nature."

"But she _is_ a freak of nature!" the male defended.

"How so?"

He sputtered and realized that 'freak of nature' may have been a bit strong. "Well you've got to admit she's not normal."

"What is normal?" Aki sighed tiredly. "Up until yesterday I would've said time travel by well wasn't possible, and yet Kagome does it often, it's normal for her. Up until today Kagome would've said ghosts and curses weren't real, yet for you they are a normal occurrence. I ask you again, what is normal?"

Inuyasha paused and thought about what she just said. She did have a point. Then he thought about how he felt when someone called him _hanyou_ like that and grit his teeth. "Alright, so she's not a freak of nature, and I won't call her one again, but if she starts calling me hanyou again all bets are off! You hear that you long-eared pain-in-the-ass!" he yelled at the stationary Hanako. "Happy now?" he sulkily grumbled at Aki.

Aki simply nodded and leaned her head against the wall beside her. It had been a strange and hectic day and she was exhausted. She shifted her tightly bound ankle to a more comfortable position and closed her tired eyes. Shutting down all connections to the rest of her body so it could rest, she began to analyze her day behind her closed eyelids.

When Kagome and Kaede made it back into the hut just as the rain began they found quiet. Aki was leaning against a wall in silent cogitation, Inuyasha was fuming quietly in a corner and Hanako was just as they left her. The quiet was a wonderful thing.

"Do we have to release, Hanako?" Kagome asked half-heartedly. The old miko merely chuckled as she lay her burdens down.

"Go ahead, let the fuzz bunny free," Inuyasha gruffly called from across the hut. He had spent his quiet angry time thinking up new insults for Hanako. His remedy for not being allowed to call the insane bunny a freak of nature was to have more insulting ammunition handy.

The old miko removed the bead and went on with her chores.

Hanako glowered at the occupants of the hut before turning to face the corner not occupied by a certain hanyou. She was overly fatigued, the left over strain from attempting to break free of the spell for hours on end. She was just too tired for an angry outburst worthy of her so she simply wouldn't waste the effort.

Aki had roused enough to notice both Inuyasha's and Hanako's behavior. With a smug half smile she sank back into her thoughts. Blessed quiet…


	5. I've Shrunk!

Huzzah! for the no reviews! Obviously my awesome writing skills have once again defied any attempts to correct and/or criticize my fanfiction. Obviously this is the case since i have yet to incense anyone to the point where they comment o any of the unlikelihood of these events and even rarer bursts of incandescent prise because my stuff is just soo good. Everyone is most desirous that I should continue and so I shall! At least until the end of this part...

A brief pause to offer up all your sympathies to the character that have unfortunately found themselves at my mercy. I'm not kind to my players, especially the ones that I like as all the bad things that happen to my main character shall continue to evince. Poor brave and enslaved souls that have inspired my fancy, be glad that few of you will die more than once!

And on that note, all the characters of Inuyasha are my play things until my lease runs out sometime in the next millenium. The poor suckers!

Oh and a quick question: Who here is absolutely floored by Hanako's enthusiasm?

**I've Shrunk!**

Inuyasha, the poor pup demon, had stumbled upon some rather trying times. Hanako simply would not let him be. Every time he turned around, there she was converting every little move into some act of perversion on his part. And always it had to do with Aki. And he could never seem to successfully argue his innocence.

Kagome found the whole situation vaguely amusing. At least she might have if the little Rabbit demon wasn't continually describing in detail all the wonderful things that Girls in love with other girls could do to each other. Now Kagome wasn't closed minded about alternate pairings, her kind little heart held no prejudice for persons that pursued a creed different from her. But that didn't mean she wanted to hear about it. Hell she didn't even want to know all the possible things Girls and guys could do together in that light. It was just something that should be private between the individuals conducting the activities.

And what of Aki, who had been claimed as the love of Hanako? Aki just pretty much ignored the whole thing. After all, she wasn't interested in forming a relationship with anyone right now. There was kind of this little curse thing ever present in her mind. She just passively disregarded every advance the long eared youkai attempted and watched the suffering of Inuyasha under the false accusations.

Besides, Hanako was always so busy keeping an eye on the dog boy; she didn't really have a lot of time to pursue her love interest. Much to Inuyasha's growing exasperation. She was seldom far from wherever the poor Hanyou had tried to escape to.

Which is why they were both effected that day Inuyasha found the Shikon shard in the giant puddle near the river. They'd had several days of heavy rain, and upon the first signs of a halt in the precipitation, Inuyasha had bolted into the trees to evade the continued onslaught of Hanako's absurd accusations.

The deluge of dihydrogen monoxide had speckled the forest floor with shiny splashes of cold reflective puddles. They were everywhere. There was no walking around with out stepping into one. Unless of course you were Inuyasha attempting to escape the imagined wrath of an insane Rabbit demon, he never touched the ground. Tree branches were much better for his special brand of annoyance-induced speed.

He probably would've got away with it too, if it weren't for that god-awful smell emanating from that particular puddle. Inuyasha is generally familiar with all the smells linked to his forest. His having spent more time there than anyone else made him quite the expert and that smell did not belong here. And one who claimed to own the forest simply did not allow the unknown to invade his territory uninvestigated.

So he landed carefully so as not to touch the water. Inuyasha leaned over the surface to glance down into his reflection and was promptly knocked into it by a surprise attack from behind. Hanako, his attacker, also went careening into the puddle when the momentum of her attack was coupled with the slick footing around the edge of the water.

There followed a great splash, the like of which has never been seen since or before. It had a very unique spray pattern, one which any forensic scientist would have a field day trying to figure out and never quite manage. But I digress, there certainly weren't any forensic scientists back in the day. Besides, how often do two bodies make a splash while, and at the same time, one body gets smaller while the other stays the same? Answer: Definitely not often.

So which body got smaller? Which indeed.

"For the last time, you Devil Bunny, I'm not thinking anything Hentai about Aki!" a rather young sounding voice yelled out.

Hanako, otherwise known as "devil Bunny", whirled around in surprise, trying to take in all the surrounding area at once. Now just where did that voice come from? The only other person around that she could sense was Inuyasha, and he most certainly didn't sound like that. Speaking of Inuyasha, she was still sitting on him.

"Oi, you can get off now," grumbled that strange voice again. Hanako slowly backed off of Inuyasha and took a good look at the hanyou she'd been sitting on. There was the body that shrunk.

Or rather the hanyou that got younger. He was still a perverted male to Hanako, but he was just so cute!

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Inuyasha asked, a little nervous with the look the rabbit demon was giving him. "And when did you get taller?" He asked again before finally noticing that his voice sounded different. Then he noticed other things too. He noticed that the ground seemed much too close when he was standing up. He noticed that his hands seemed much smaller than they did a minute ago. The trees seemed so much more intimidating from where he was standing than they had when he was running through them. Just what was going on?

Hanako began to giggle hysterically in disbelief. "You've shrunk!" her eyes growing shiny as the possibilities the situation presented her with began to sink in. "You're like a little kid. And totally smaller than me. Now lets see you try and think perverted things about my Aki now." The rabbit demon's giggle began to transform into a very self-satisfied evil cackle.

"Why does everything go back to Aki with you?" Inuyasha grumbled under his breath and sighed. He was growing tired of this whole situation and he still couldn't figure out what precisely had just happened. Seriously, who in their right mind would be thinking perverted thoughts about anyone just after somehow being shrunk to half their normal size?

Oh well, there was only one thing for it. Inuyasha growled with displeasure as he realized he would have to go back to the old hag's hut to get this situation all sorted out. The hag might be able to shed some light on just what the hell was going on. But damn if he didn't really want to go back. He'd just managed to escape that prison. Though if he really thought about it, he hadn't quite managed to escape. Hanako was still right here chewing his ears off about some supposed slight on Aki's honor from his behavior.

Reluctantly, the now super Kawaii dog boy trudged back to the village unfailingly hounded by Hanako the whole way.

When Inuyasha and Hanako finally made it back to Kaede's hut, a trip made longer by the bunny youkai's maniacal laughter, the hanyou's temper was beginning to run frightfully high for such a small body.

"Back so soon Hanako?" Kagome greeted them cheerfully. "I didn't think you'd come back without Inuyasha in some sort of physical restraints and dragged along after you."

Chibi-Inuyasha fumed. As if that demented rabbit could successfully manage to do anything of the sort to him. He was too strong to ever be taken down. He'd just have to show Kagome that. The mini-dogboy prepared to attack the girl that so insulted his strength.

"Ah, Hanako, who's your friend?" the poor clueless girl inquired. As yet Kagome had been unable to get a good look at the child standing somewhat behind the demon.

Inuyasha fumbled the approach on his attack with surprise. "What d'you mean who am I? Don't you know who I am?" he growled in disbelief. "How could you not know who I am?"

Hanako giggled, "Well you don't exactly look like yourself now do you?" The youkai rabbit leaned over him to make it extremely obvious that at the very least he wasn't as tall as he normally was. "And Kagome can't exactly see through me. What's the matter? Afraid of Kagome's reaction to your new – and I must say – cuter self?" Hanako teased him as he still refused to come out from behind her. "C'mon Kagome won't mind babysitting you until you grow up," the rabbit laughed. "After all, she didn't mind before!"

"You take that back!" Inuyasha shouted from his full height, "you over grown garden sprout nibbler!" The insult probably would've been more effective coming from a deeper more grown up voice, as it was Hanako only laughed and stepped completely away from the chibi dogboy's side.

"Eh?" Kagome was flabbergasted. What was Hanako doing with a little boy? An adorable little boy with cute little dog-ears on the top of his silver – Wait a minute, dog-ears? The kid was also wearing a rather large fire rat costume and a particularly wary expression. He had just been arguing with the taller rabbit youkai much like a certain someone else she knew. It couldn't be, could it?

Kagome immediately checked for the spelled necklace Inuyasha always wore and couldn't miss it. The beads now hung down almost to the boy's waist. No way! "Inuyasha?" Kagome asked still in her own form of denial.

The boy ducked his head nervously, childish golden eyes looking away with a fear he would never admit. "Quit starin' wench!" the chibi hanyou barked sharply.

Kagome suppressed her anger at the pintsized Inuyasha; after all it wouldn't do to abuse defenseless children. "What happened?" she asked hoping there might be some clue as to how to reverse it. Visions of caring for a child-like Inuyasha danced like nightmares in her head.

"We fell into this puddle, see," Hanako began gesturing to her wet apparel and hair. "It seems to have made us – "

"That's not how it happened," the chibi hanyou huffed. "If you're not going to tell it right then shut up!" the boy growled unpleasantly. "I was running through the forest, you know? Like I normally do," no way was he running to get away from Hanako. That would indicate he was afraid of her, and he wasn't afraid of anybody or anything! "When I noticed this smell that shouldn't be there. Not wanting some strange demon to move in on my territory, I went to investigate. It seemed the smell was coming from this puddle. I landed beside it and before I could check it out any further, this long-eared bundle of insanity fell into it, knocking me in at the same time."

Hanako cuffed the vertically challenged male on the back of the head. "That's for the insult you over grown Chihuahua!"

Kagome's eyebrow twitched as the two fell into a juvenile name-calling contest. It wasn't until they degenerated into violence that she actually became angry enough to snap. "Shut up!" Kagome counted slowly to ten so that her teeth only ground a little when she finally spoke again. "Can we please get back to the subject of what happened?"

Hanako looked at her blandly, "that's it. Once the water stopped flying we were as you see us."

"Yeah." Inuyasha added sulkily. "I shrank!"

"Then why is Hanako unchanged if you both fell in at the same time?" The miko in training thought aloud.

"Perhaps a more logical explanation would be that we became younger," Hanako suggested helpfully.

"But that would mean that you're older than Inuyasha," Kagome countered.

"Is that so hard to believe?" the rabbit demanded slightly insulted.

Since Kagome couldn't answer the question truthfully without insulting the youkai and the rabbit would be able to sense it if she lied, she changed the subject. "Do you remember where the puddle is? We don't want anyone else to fall in." Kagome pointed out.

"I agree," Kaede said coming up behind Kagome from inside the hut. She had over heard the whole story because Inuyasha is incapable of ever speaking at a normal volume. "It would be bad if some child stumbled across this fountain of youth and splashed themselves right out of existence."

"I doubt that would happen, it's pretty far away from the village," Inuyasha informed them, trying to make it so it didn't sound like he cared about little kids.

"Even so, it is a danger. And children are the most likely to go play in puddles," Kagome pointed out. "So we really should go check it out and see if we can't remove the very possibility. So I ask again, do you know where it is?"

"Feh! Of course I know where it is!" the hanyou began arrogantly, though the declaration was false. Not that it mattered, the puddle reeked, and he'd be able to find it in no time either way. Inuyasha moved to pick up Kagome and the girl refused to budge. "C'mon! Let's get this over with!" He moved to pick her up again and Kagome just gave him a weird look. "What?" He demanded irritably. What was with her? He wanted to get this over with. The sooner they figured out what was going on the sooner he could get back to normal.

"Inuyasha I'm twice your size, you can't carry me," Kagome explained.

"I am not weak!" the hanyou bellowed. "Stop being stupid and come on!"

"I never said you weren't strong enough!" Kagome yelled back. "I said you weren't big enough!" Hanako snickered and Kagome realized what she just yelled. Where was a hungry piece of earth when you needed it?

Inuyasha crossed his arms and capitulated to her logic. Kagome was right after all, she was twice his height, but he didn't understand why she'd suddenly turned all red. She wasn't getting sick, was she?

"Can we come back to the problem at hand?" the old miko called resettling her bow and quiver on her shoulders. "The emergency is not so great that we cannot all walk there."

"You're right, Kaede," Kagome agreed respectfully. "Lead on Inuyasha."

The child-like hanyou lead them to the edge of the forest where he promptly stuck his nose in the air and began to follow the scent.

"Hmph!" the rabbit youkai began. "I thought so. That idiot doesn't remember where it is!"

"Eh?" Kagome gasped.

"He's sniffing for the trail!" Hanako declared disgustedly. "Just like a male to falsely claim knowledge of things!"

"It matters not. His nose knows the way even if his brain does not," Kaede continued following the dogboy.

Kagome shrugged and trudged on. They would get where they were going eventually. Though she kind of had to agree with Hanako, it was stupid to claim knowledge you didn't have. What if someone's life had been on the line? Best not to think of it.

"How can you trust his nose when you can't trust the rest of him?" Hanako refused to let the matter drop.

"Does it matter if we _can_ trust Inuyasha right now? None of what he's likely to do is going to hurt us and Aki's not around for you to impress," Kagome began in a placating way. "Can't you just let it go?"

"Speaking of my beloved," Hanako pounced on the topic, "Where is my Lady Love?"

Kagome discreetly rolled her eyes; at least she wasn't badgering Inuyasha.

"The young lady parted from our company not long after you chased after Inuyasha," the old miko answered. "She seemed desirous of some time to herself. Though I am not sure she will have been able to achieve it as the ghost followed her."

"You let her go out without someone to protect her!" the long-eared youkai cried in horror. "She could be in dange-"

Kaede knocked the rabbit on the back of her head with the bow she'd taken to using as a walking stick. "Leave her be," the old miko ordered without inflection.

"It may surprise you, Hanako," Kagome chuckled gently, "but Aki is a grown woman and fully capable of taking care of herself."

"What about all those injuri-" Hanako began again.

"None were life threatening and most were incurred when she saved a child from the river monster just before we met you," Kaede cut her off.

"But she's only human," Hanako tried to protest one last time.

"Strength and speed are not everything" Kaede returned. "Aki strikes me as a very intelligent young woman, if a bit quiet."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Hanako demanded.

"She means that Aki can probably think her way out of more trouble than she's likely to get into and you should stop worrying and give her the privacy she desires. Besides, we should focus on the problem before us," Kagome explained.

"Oi! Are you guys coming or are you gonna talk all day?" a distant Hanyou called.

"Sometimes I wish I could do more than make that guy do body slams into the ground," Kagome ground out as she picked up her pace.

"What is a baa-di suramu?" Hanako asked the elderly miko. Kaede simply hit her bow on the youkai's head and moved to keep pace with Kagome.

Inuyasha was getting rather irritated. He was almost to the location of the treacherous puddle and feeling pretty good since once they got there he would be returned to normal. Once he returned to normal he planned to level a large amount of the forest using _Hanako_ for an axe. Then he intended to use the lumber for his very own ghost village that he would build using _Kagome_ for a hammer. He was working on a use for the old hag when he realized the others weren't right behind him. Not even close.

Those slow, good for nothing wenches! Didn't they _know_ he was impatient to get back to his former self?

So Inuyasha allowed his slightly irrational anger get the best of him and yelled at them to hurry up. It was after he'd finished speaking that he realized he'd just antagonized three women that were all a great deal bigger than him. One of whom had a very tight reign over his spelled necklace.

The dogboy gulped and ducked his head, before returning to the task at hand. Find that puddle!

Damn! He could hear the time traveler muttering under her breath. He knew what was coming. Kagome was angry and while trying to keep her anger to herself, she would inadvertently say the dreaded word sending him painfully to the forest floor.

He tried not to listen. He tried to focus only on the strange scent. He willed the fauna to make more noise. But fate is not kind where Inuyasha was concerned and he clearly heard it when she said Osuwari. Both times it was said.

Luckily, Inuyasha had been hunched close to the ground so the fall and the impact weren't that bad. Unfortunately, he fell face first in some rather soupy mud.

By the time he managed to crawl out of his impromptu mud bath the rest had caught up. Poor Inuyasha was having a terrible time digging the mud out of his soft ears. He wasn't having much better luck clearing the mud from his eyes, as quickly as he managed to wipe them out, more of the soggy mess oozed right back into the cleared area.

"What'd you stop for, Inuyasha?" Hanako asked ignoring the obvious. "Can't find the scent of it now that your nose is full of dirt?" she teased.

Inuyasha growled as threateningly as he could while being two feet tall and covered in mud. "There's your damn puddle!" The chibi hanyou yelled, pointing about ten steps away.

Kagome and Kaede both approached the puddle warily. The closer they got the more noticeable the smell became.

"Hey look at that!" Kagome gasped pointing at the trunk of the tree in whose roots the puddle nestled. Midway up the trunk of the tree, about eye level, was a patch of freshly damaged bark.

"What do you see, Kagome?" the old miko asked gently as the girl carefully stepped around the water.

Kagome reached up to tug on some of the loose bark, careful not to touch the sap that leaked from the wound under it. The bark came loose with a firm tug and revealed "Shikon no kakera," Kagome breathed. The Shikon shard was embedded in the naked flesh of the tree. The wound wept sap at an incredibly fast rate. The girl studied it for a moment, trying to gauge how deeply lodged the piece of glass was. "I think I can pull it free," the ninth grader thought aloud.

"Be careful, girl," Kaede warned. "I recognize this tree. It is rumored to bare fruit that can preserve the youth of whomever eats of its fruit. No wonder the sap caused Inuyasha to become younger. Do not touch it at any cost. If the diluted sap could affect the half demon so much, then it does not bode well for you if you should come in contact with the undiluted tree's blood."

Kagome nodded, absently noting the warning. But she had to get the shard, no matter what the danger was. She reached up, precariously balanced on her toes and reached for the shard.

It was at this inopportune moment that a voice popped up to surprise them all. "What the hell happened to you?" Fred asked in confusion. The suddenness of his appearance caused Hanako to jump back in startlement, accidentally knocking the elderly miko into the tepid water she had been examining. The resulting splash went in all directions, but the main of it went towards Kagome who had no hope of escape.

Though Inuyasha was small, he was still fast and strong. It was this very fact that quite possibly saved Kagome's life as she found herself yanked up into the branches of the very tree she had been standing next to.

"Ah, sorry," the ghost said shamefaced. He kept forgetting to warn them of his approach. "Even so, my question still stands, what happened?"

"The same thing happened to Inuyasha as happened to Kaede just now, you twit," grumped Hanako fairly upset.

"I'm fine," a considerably younger Kaede coughed as she picked herself up. "I guess being so old finally paid off."

"Heh! Now you look like the little runt I remember," Inuyasha called down from the tree he and Kagome perched in.

"Yeah, well I bet I'm still taller than you!" little girl Kaede called back.

"I doubt it!"

"Hanako," Kagome called to the demon bunny, "could you help me down?"

"Oi! Why are you asking her? I'm right here," Inuyasha growled petulantly.

Kagome gave him a flat look before continuing to ask Hanako for aid.

The chibi hanyou growled before grabbing Kagome and leaping out of the tree to the ground. As they landed he heard a sound he was certain wasn't good.

"Inu-ya-sha!" the ninth grader ground out through tears of pain. The dogboy cringed, his ears flattened to his hair. "That was why I wanted Hanako to help!"

"Let me see," Kaede was by the girl's side in an instant, her bow dropped beside her in the flotsam of the forest floor.

"Feh! Humans are such weak things!" Inuyasha said, gruffly burying the guilt he felt.

"Well, so-rry for being human and trying to help you! Next time I won't be so careful of your huge ego!" Kagome yelled.

"I don't need help! Especially from some stupid weak girl!" he yelled back.

"You may have forgotten Inuyasha but you're not exactly like your normal self. I'd say you should accept the help being offered and be grateful!" The girl hurled back. "You –you pip squeak!"

"Maybe it's difficult for you to believe, but I _have_ been this height before and I survived just fine without you and your so-called help!" the hanyou exploded.

"Oh yeah? Then why don't you go do it again!" Kagome screamed.

"Fine, I will!" and with that, the hanyou turned and ran into the forest without looking back and ignoring the smell of salt in his nose.

In all honesty, while Inuyasha wasn't looking back, he wasn't exactly paying attention to where he was going either. In fact, he might well have continued on running not caring where he went if the land hadn't run out underneath him. He noted absently that he was falling right where Kagome had sat him a few days prior for spying on her bathing. The fall was a bit longer than he remembered. Instead of stopping instantly when he hit the ground, the youth proceeded to tumble head over heals until he finally came to a stop with a big splash in the cold water.

Inuyasha righted himself in the shallow water and started cursing out his frustration, the day, the universe and everything. The youth was intermittently slamming his fist against the water to punctuate his speech. He quite possibly could've gone on happily cussing up a storm standing waist deep in the slowly darkening water as the mud from earlier streamed off him if it weren't for that voice.

"You know, you're mucking up the water with all that bad language," an amused voice observed from the water to his left. Inuyasha's ears sprung up as he turned to look at whoever had spoken and immediately wished he hadn't as the muddied triangles flattened to his skull. There, standing not more than four feet away was a very naked Aki with water reaching up to mid thigh. Inuyasha's face turned the color of his un-muddied fire rat fur. "You sound like you've had a really bad day. You want to tell me about it while I help you get rid of that mud?" She smiled gently at him.

"You're not going to scream?" Inuyasha asked sulkily.

"No, why would I scream?" Aki asked in return.

"'Cause I'm a boy and you're a girl not wearing clothes and Kagome always screams," Inuyasha explained.

"Wait, you're Inuyasha?"

"Who'd you think I was? Hanako?"

"Well you gotta admit you don't look like yourself," Aki pointed out.

"Don't you start in about my height too," Inuyasha grumbled.

"I wasn't talking about your height, though that is different. I meant that you're covered in mud and currently look brown," Aki explained.

"So you were just going to help some random demon?"

"Wrong, Inuyasha. I was going to help some random little boy. Children are just kids, no matter who or what or where," she clarified.

"Do I look like a little kid to you!" Inuyasha yelled indignantly then stopped to think at the look she gave him. Oops! "Don't answer that." Aki just smiled her victory and crouched down in the water. "You're really not going to scream?"

"Again, Inuyasha, why would I? You're not exactly a threat to my virtue as you are currently, I'm not embarrassed by my physical appearance, and I don't care what other people might speculate about me behind my back. There's only one person currently in the world whose opinion I care about in the least and he's dead and wholly in capable of thinking ill of me for something so asinine," Aki countered.

"Kagome always screams," The hanyou commented.

"Kagome," Aki began, "is still getting used to her changing body and she's confused about the relationships she's developing here. She worries what her family and friends will think of her."

"And you don't have family and friends to worry about?" Inuyasha pursued the topic relentlessly. He barely even noticed that she was gently rubbing the mud from his hair.

"Not anymore," Aki whispered gently massaging mud from his ear, "and I very much doubt that I ever will again."

"Why?" the curious Hanyou asked.

"I don't intend to pursue any such relationships," Aki answered as she stole his haori to rinse out the filth. "Remember the other day when Fred was trying to convince me that there's no such thing as curses? I've pretty much figured out that I must be cursed. There's no other explanation for the death of my family followed by the slow death of all my friends."

"Epidemic? Plague? Famine?" Inuyasha listed some of the more common culprits.

"Would all make sense if all the members of my rather large family lived in the same area, came into close contact with each other often, and hadn't all died within an hour of each other," Aki replied. "And if it hadn't taken all my friends, who again didn't all live in the same area or come into close contact with one another."

Inuyasha blinked, "Just how many people are we talking about?"

"About three times the number in Kaede's village, well over half being family, spread around the world, ranging in age from babies to grandparents," Aki answered mechanically with a smile. It was then that Inuyasha understood that all of her smiles were fake and empty of emotion.

She used her smile like armor, a shining shield to draw attention from the hurt and pain. Aki was a lot like him in her attempts to hide what she felt. Inuyasha watched her ring out the fire rat cloth and set it out to dry. Yes, she hid her feelings but he realized, she was better at it than he was. Nobody questioned or pressed a smile for a truth contrary to what the smile indicated. If someone smiled at you, you believed it, and if you noticed it was forced you made your own assumptions as to why.

He reached out to touch her face and fell short. "Don't do that," Inuyasha rumbled. "You don't have to smile if you don't mean it, not around me."

Aki blinked and her smile became strained but stayed in place. "Sorry," she apologized, "habit."

"Just so's you know, you don't have to pretend around me," Inuyasha informed her gruffly. "It must be exhausting to be like that all the time."

Aki blinked again. "Oh no, Inuyasha," she teased, "I sure hope you don't have a crush on me!" The chibi hanyou blushed scarlet and was suddenly glad his body wasn't older; otherwise blood might be rushing to places other than his face. "You're too nice a guy to suffer through the heart break of me refusing to like you."

Inuyasha stiffened slightly, "What, Is the lousy hanyou not good enough for you?"

"The fact that you're a hanyou has nothing to do with it!" Aki exclaimed. "The fact that you're alive and I'm cursed is the deciding reason!"

Inuyasha blinked in relief and then chagrin. He should've known that. She'd already said she wasn't going to pursue a new family or friends because of her curse. He really should learn to think about things before he spoke.

"Besides," Aki continued confidingly, "I think Kagome's more your type!" Inuyasha flushed again, this time at the thought of the crazy time traveling miko in training. Rather than actually answering the English tutor, he attacked her with a splash of water. She laughed and splashed back half-heartedly. Aki sighed and glanced at the sky. "Hey, Inuyasha, you should probably put your clothes back on."

"Why?" the semi-nude chibi dog boy asked, confused at the sudden change of subject.

"Because I expect we'll be getting some company soon if we don't head back," Aki answered. "Fred threatened to come back soon and it's highly unlikely that the thought of you meeting up with me would not have crossed Hanako's mind by now."

Inuyasha nodded in agreement and moved to slide into his now clean clothes. "You don't actually like that crazy Hanako do you?" he asked Aki from the depths of red fabric he tried to wrap around himself.

"Inuyasha, I don't like anybody, but if I ever did, I can assure you I was never into girls the way Hanako is," Aki replied slipping on her pants.

"Actually, it might be a good thing Hanako's not into guys," Inuyasha muttered, "lessens the likelihood that she'll breed." The poor hanyou was struggling with the ties on his clothing, not quite used to his attire having so much excess material. He cursed under his breath, when suddenly something happened to eliminate the problem. Inuyasha grew a couple feet in height. Yay! He was back to normal and could now quite easily finish dressing. Inuyasha's favorite expression slid home on his face. His custom smirk/scowl had been conspicuously lacking since the puddle incident this morning. Perhaps he just needed to be this tall to pull it off.

The dogboy turned to show off his newly reacquired height to the sole person around him and paused. Aki wasn't quite finished dressing. Currently she was slowly fastening the buttons on her shirt. The action in itself wasn't that interesting though Inuyasha wasn't particularly familiar with buttons, rather it was the view of what was being hidden underneath the shirt that caused him pause.

Aki was thin. She was so thin Inuyasha was surprised she cast a shadow, and he was certain it couldn't be healthy. At the moment, he was trying to remember when the last time he'd seen her eat. The boy's eyes widened as he realized there wasn't a single memory of her having eaten and she had fallen through the well days ago.

"Oi! When was the last time you ate?"

Aki blinked before glancing at the hanyou, "I ate the last time I was hungry."

"And when was that?"

Aki just shrugged and finished dressing. Did it really matter?

Inuyasha's eyes hardened. She needed someone to take care of her, look after her, and he liked her well enough to be the one to do it.

She wasn't going to try for a new family – fine then. He was going to see to it a family formed itself for her. It would be nice to have family that wasn't trying to kill him on purpose or already dead.

Inuyasha smiled toothily at Aki's back as he followed her to the village. A light misting rain began to fall oblivious to the plotting going on underneath it.

Typed: June 13,2005


	6. Soggy Blue Jeans

Again with the no reviews. And here I thought I might get somebody to at least respond to the question... But that's OK! You probably forgot about it after you read the chapter. I know, I know. My chapters are just too awesome to allow you any memory of the silly things you read just previous to it.

Seriously though, I can't believe my grammar and spelling haven't received some comment. No matter what I say, I'm pretty sure I'm not perfect. Then Again... It's nice of you all to think so.

The Inuyasha Cast are all so very despondent. They're stuck working with me for another 990 years or so. Don't you feel sorry for them?

**Soggy Blue Jeans**

Some days never seem to end. They last longer than the time normally allotted to a single day, and it never happens when you want it to. And unfortunately, this was one of those phenomally extended days.

The light misting rain that had heralded Aki's and Inuyasha's return to Kaede's hut had quickly evolved into a pounding deluge that made any necessary journeys from the shelter of the wooden enclosure thoroughly unpleasant. An unpleasantness Aki had deemed inconsequential after the first eight hours of Inuyasha's determined attempts to have her call him "Inu-nii-sama" or older brother as it were.

At first everyone had thought the hanyou was merely trying to be funny, his persistence was ridiculous and the sudden request laughable and out of character. That was yesterday, and now, even Fred agreed it wasn't funny anymore.

Of course Aki's teeth were on edge from the start. The hanyou knew she wouldn't appreciate the reminder of once having brothers or his request to become one. Inuyasha knew better and the whole situation would've been extremely painful, but what was one more small pain compared to the flood that had left her too numb to feel anything else. Nothing anyone said seemed to discourage or dissuade the dogboy from continuing to torture everyone within earshot.

And they'd thought Hanako was bad.

Aki wasn't the only one to seek refuge in the rain. After firmly planting Inuyasha in the floor, Kagome likewise fled into the elements claiming a desperate need for a bath, disregarding the fact she would be soaked to the skin long before she reached the river. The little miko in training tromped through the woods, her mood volatile and dark. "Stupid weed!" she snarled at the hapless plant that happened to get in her way.

The poor defenseless plant very nearly found itself violently uprooted but for a staying hand that came to its rescue. "As annoying as Inuyasha is to you," a tiredly calm voice poured into her ear, "I highly doubt that the local flora deserve such punishment." And all the shrubs and tress and weeds sent up a song of praise and relief that someone finally, finally saw them as more than inexpensive background materials. "I mean really," Aki continued, "if you must tear up something why don't you store your anger until you can do something really impressive like level the place." The song of praise instantly stopped. "Think about it Kagome, what's a Weed or bush here and there in the context of a forest?"

Kagome blinked with surprise and dawning horror, "I could never do something like that! To destroy a forest- that's just…just," tantamount to anathema. Kagome instantly reverted to environmentalist mode. "A forest is a living organism required for the continued life on this planet."

"Ah, but so is that plant you almost uprooted as it is an integral part of the forest required for continued life on this planet," Aki returned gently. The song of praise and relief timidly started up again.

Kagome blinked and color began to flood into her rain-spattered face. "I get your point," the ninth grader sighed.

"What point?" Aki asked almost flippantly.

Kagome grappled with her confusion, "Wasn't there a point?"

"There is if you find one," the other replied evenly as she retreated to the debatable shelter of a nearby tree. "Tell me what point did you find with what I said."

"Well, the most obvious one would be to think before you act," Kagome began as she followed the older woman that doubled as her English tutor.

"Always a good thing to do," Aki encouraged.

"Then there's the slightly less obvious suggestion of conserving your energy for more productive endeavors paired with the even less obvious advice to choose your battles rather than fighting over every little thing," Kagome continued.

"Generally pretty sound advice," the other nodded, pushing her long wet hair behind her ear.

"And the most important of all: That all life is precious regardless of how small or insignificant it seems," Kagome finished.

"I said all that?" Aki asked quietly.

"Well that's what I got from it," the teenager returned.

"Why can't you learn so much from our tutoring sessions?" Aki inquired tiredly.

Kagome flushed scarlet before turning to leave.

"Where're you going now?" Aki asked, voice devoid of even the slightest hint of curiosity.

"To find a rock to beat up on," the little miko-in-training answered distractedly.

"Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I always thought it best to take my anger out on the object that caused it first," Aki stopped her. "Come now, don't make me feel sorry for some poor defenseless piece of dirt."

"Well you just told me that all life is precious and no matter what I would like to say about Inuyasha, he is alive, so what else am I supposed to do?" Kagome huffed in her frustration. "I can't just take a bunch of arrows to practice my archery every time I get angry because it takes so much to make them here. And if I sat Inuyasha as many times as I felt the need, he wouldn't survive a week! So I ask you, what else am I supposed to do?"

"You could always try talking about it with someone," Aki suggested gently.

"I…It…He…" Kagome stuttered, starting and changing her mind repeatedly.

"Okay," Aki intoned carefully, "obviously there's an awful lot that's bothering you. Why don't you prioritize them? Start with the most recent or whatever's the easiest to talk about." Again Kagome's frustrations failed to organize themselves into words until the girl was forced to resort to inarticulate growls. "So that didn't work. Let's see," Aki thought for a moment. "Did I ever tell you about what Fred was like when he was alive?"

Kagome huffed as her companion seemingly changed the subject. "No," she answered sullenly. How was knowing about Fred supposed to help anyone right now?

"When Fred was alive, we were fairly good friends," Aki began, "him and I and some other people we used to hang out with would go out to dinner about once a month. It didn't matter where we went, Fred would always order the same thing. It was something of a running joke with us. Anyways, when he would finish with his meal, he would always, _always_ lick his fingers very noisily."

"Ew!" Kagome squealed.

"Absolutely disgusting. There's no telling how often or not he washed his hands and even if he was as clean as sterilized plastic, it was damned annoying," Aki continued. "Once I made the mistake of telling him how much it bothered me."

"What'd he do?" Kagome asked, absolutely certain he didn't just refrain from licking his fingers.

"He said 'oh!' then did it again with deliberately exaggerated gestures and louder noises all the while making everybody else laugh," Aki related.

"That Jerk!" Kagome pronounced him. "What did you do?"

"I tipped him out of his chair in the restaurant while he was checking out the waitress at the next table," Aki informed the younger girl. "He knocked his head, bruised his ego, and a good number of other tables had a good laugh at his expense."

"And he let you get away with that?" Kagome asked incredulously.

"Of course not," Aki smiled, "but that wasn't the point. The point was that even the people that mean a lot to us can be terribly irksome."

"Don't I know it!" Kagome began, easily slipping into rant mode. "Have you seen Inuyasha eat! Ugh, it just turns my stomach! And he smells! Does he not know what soap and water are? Just water would make a huge improvement! And he complains about how I smell! And that attitude of his! Does he really think I need to be reminded of my species and gender _every_ fifteen minutes?" Kagome rolled her eyes at the thought, her wildly gesturing arms flinging water in all directions. "And what's with him suddenly deciding to bother you with calling him 'Inu-nii-sama'? Is he that desperate for family? But then why ask you? I've known him longer! And what kind of jerk makes such a request by demanding the formalness of –sama? He's no better than any of the rest of us! And what makes him think he should be the elder? He should be calling you 'Aki-nee-san' at the very least! The nerve of that guy trying to make you call him 'Inu-nii-sama'!"

Aki chuckled, " And what would I call him, then? 'Inuki-chan'?" she asked gently.

"No! You should call him 'koinu' because that's how he acts!" Kagome gleefully declared.

"Oh is that so!" a gruff voice demanded from above them.

"Osuwari!" Kagome hollered. Inuyasha's red and silver figured planted itself in the knarred roots at their feet. "You shouldn't eavesdrop!"

Aki snorted, "Well, he certainly dropped something, Kagome."

The ninth grader blinked at the older woman as understanding seeped into her brain and she began to crack up.

Inuyasha sat up slightly confused. He'd been sat which meant Kagome was angry…and yet, she was laughing. The hanyou turned to the quiet woman next to him. "What's so funny, Aki-nee-sama?" Inuyasha slyly slipped the familial reference in.

"Just a rather poor play on words, and it wasn't that funny. No, I will not call you 'Inuki-chan' and I would ask you to stop calling me that if I thought you'd listen," Aki answered slightly annoyed with the hanyou.

"So what's wrong with her then? And you said you'd call me that if I called you 'Aki-nee-sama'," Inuyasha pressed determinedly forward.

"I think she's just releasing tension and I never said I would call you anything," Aki argued back and rubbed her temple.

"Yes you did," he disagreed.

"Leave Aki alone, Inuyasha," Kagome ordered firmly.

"You stay out of this," Inuyasha growled. "Don't forget whose stupidity it was broke the Shikon."

"What's that got to do with this!" Kagome asked in exasperation.

"You don't get a say until you've gotten smarter and put the damn thing back together," the hanyou hollered back. "So shut up and stay out of this!"

"I will not so quit harassing Aki!"

"Why don't you try and make me, stupid wench!"

"Don't tempt me, Inuyasha, you won't like what I'll do," Kagome threatened darkly standing toe-to-toe with the brash male.

"Keh! What can you do? You're just a puny human!"

"Puny human! I'll give you puny human!" Kagome fairly growled herself.

"Would you two knock it off?" Aki grumbled loudly over the two.

"I will when he does," Kagome announced.

"Keh! I will if you call me 'Inuki-chan' like you said you would!" Inuyasha declared smugly. Granted, it wasn't exactly what he'd like to be called, but a pet name was something, right? Right.

Aki knocked her head back against the trunk of the tree. "Oh fine! Inuki-chan. Are you happy now, fuzz head!" Aki growled pretty convincingly. "Fate save me from the cruelties of the immature and stupid!" She glared back at the two as she strove to distance herself from them.

"Are you happy now?" Kagome asked angrily and smacked Inuyasha on the back of the head before following after Aki and yelling 'osuwari' for good measure. "Stupid, Inuyasha!" she grumbled under her breathe as she trudged after her English tutor.

"I can't believe you gave in to that!" Fred's voice broke through Kagome's continued grumbling as he teased his friend.

"Shut up," Aki ordered evenly. "I have a headache, Fred. Either keep quiet or go away unless you have something of importance to impart. Can you handle that?" She asked with a sigh as Kagome came into view.

Kagome thought it was strange that Aki looked so normal, so…unlike how she had looked when Inuyasha had forced her to concede to his demand. Aki had looked ready to do something drastic. Now, now she looked as if nothing had happened at all. "Aki," Kagome called cautiously, it never hurt to be careful.

"Yes Kagome," Aki answered tiredly.

"Are you alright?" Kagome asked with leftover concern.

"I'm fine," Aki answered absently.

The ghost looked ready to explode at that statement. "You most certainly-"

"Fred," Aki cut him off with a warning tone. The apparition glowered at her but did not make any further noise. Aki shifted against the new tree she leaned on. "Would you care to inform me of what that was about back there, Kagome?"

The girl thought hard for a moment, "Which part?"

"The part that had Inuyasha so mad," Aki clarified mildly.

And so Kagome began the sordid tale of overgrown insects, half demon tree ornaments, crow infested cadavers, and demented hair care equipment. The tale made Kagome's time traveling ability seem like more of a footnote than a momentous discovery and Aki was sure she would never look at pieces of glass the same way again. Thankfully, the tale was short but no less eventful for its brevity.

"So let me get this straight," Aki began, "the Shikon no tama is a little glass ball that grants untold powers to the holder. You broke it and the pieces scattered far and wide. Each tiny sliver in the wrong hands is just as bad as the whole thing would be so you and Inuyasha are going to hunt up all the pieces. Just the two of you against the unknown with the added trouble of our dog-eared friend trying to steal it all from you at every turn."

Kagome nodded, "That's about the sum of it."

Aki passed a speaking glance at her hovering companion who looked just as incredulous as she felt. "How do you plan to go about searching for these shards of glass again?"

"Well, I can kind of sense them and Inuyasha can fight demons, so that's basically how we intend to get started," the girl beamed.

"Do you have any idea just what your 'sensing' range is?" Fred asked clearly stunned at their half-baked plan.

"No," Kagome frowned.

"How 'bout a direction to start in?" Fred asked again.

"No."

"Any idea how long this endeavor will take?"

"No."

"Supplies?"

"Nope."

"No?"

"No."

"What about-"

"Enough Fred," Aki interrupted their confrontation with a sigh. "Kagome would you like some advice?"

"No-I mean, sure Aki-chan, seeing as it's coming from you," Kagome answered. "Just keep in mind that I have to fix this, it's my fault."

"I wasn't going to tell you not to," Aki returned evenly. "I was only going to suggest you go home to get some decent supplies. Things like a first aid kit, portable nonperishable foods, spare clothing, and soap, that is, if you _can_ go home," the older female advised calmly.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Kagome nodded thoughtfully.

"Don't forget a water bottle and flashlight," Fred suggested in a brief moment of helpfulness.

"And I could bring my books to help me keep up with school!" Kagome gasped with inspiration.

"Er, I wouldn't-"

"Fred," Aki cut him off.

"You're probably right," he murmured back.

"I should probably go try it now since we're not really doing anything else at the moment," Kagome suggested.

"True that," Aki agreed, "And if you did manage to get through, you could get yourself some dry clothes and a hot bath, right?"

"Right!" Kagome gushed. The thought of hot running water, dry clothes and her mother's cooking usurping any other thought.

"I'll walk you," Aki offered.

"You're not going to try?" Kagome blinked out of her euphoria.

"I'd rather wait to jump into wells until after I'll have an easier time of climbing out on my own," Aki indicated her still healing hands and arm.

"I guess that makes sense," Kagome thought out loud. "After all, you still have to climb back out again whether or not it works."

"Exactly," Aki nodded gently, barely shifting her sopping wet hair with the move. "Besides, somebody has to tell the others where you went."

Kagome laughed, "True, though I would ask that you hold off on that a while, otherwise Inuyasha'll come storming after me again!"

"I don't know," Fred cut in, "he might hold off awhile this time. There's not somebody out to steal your shards now, is there?"

"I suppose you're right," Kagome agreed. "What do you think Aki?"

"I think we should worry about what's going to happen when it happens," Aki stated quietly, her voice barely discernable over the sound of the rain.

"Don't go borrowing trouble, huh?" Kagome intoned, missing Fred's stricken look in her response. "Good Advice."

"Hmm," Aki hummed briefly in response.

"So what are you going to do about Hanako?" Kagome asked out of twisted curiosity.

"What do you mean?" Aki asked absently.

"I mean, do you intend to hook up with her?" Kagome asked nosily.

"I don't see how there's any reason to ask about that," Aki said baldly in response. "Hanako has made no offers or advances on my person. Even if she had, I absolutely refuse to form a relationship with a person that is wholly incapable of understanding the word no. What's more important than all that and even my predisposition towards male partners is that I do not want or need an attachment to anyone at this time. Period."

"Why? Do you have designs on our long-eared friend?" Fred asked firmly steering the conversation back on Kagome with a little wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Wh-wh-what are you talking about?" the girl stuttered as her face sizzled with heat.

"Well, now that you know Aki's not interested, perhaps you thought you'd save Hanako from her eventual heartbreak by filling the roll of her lover your self," the ghost continued, thoroughly enjoying the escalating color in Kagome's face.

"I thought no such thing!" The ninth grader denied with all the insulted dignity of a crimson queen.

"Stop Fred," Aki cut off her friend's continued teasing. "Hanako's just not Kagome's type." Kagome nodded her agreement. "Inuyasha's more her cup of tea." Kagome very nearly condemned herself by nodding again in reflex.

"Is this true, Kagome?" Fred teased.

"I…" Kagome began flustered and flushed before the well came into view. "Oh! Look! There's the well, see you guys later!" and she immediately sprinted for the well and bounded down the throat of it.

"Saved by the well?" Fred asked the empty air.

Aki groaned, "You just had to say it."

"I'm sorry! It was just too obvious!"

"You never were one for controlling yourself," Aki grumbled.

"So what are you thinking?" the ghost demanded.

"I'm thinking a lot of things, you'll have to be more specific."

Fred grumbled under his breath, she was being difficult. "Something about what Kagome was talking about set your devious brain to working. What new nightmare for the living world have you concocted now?"

"Fred, I don't create nightmare's. They just happen, and I've never truly been all that devious even before I was cursed, why would I start now?" Aki scoffed.

"Just answer the question."

Aki shook her head and turned from the well. "This problem they've got, it's going to take forever to fix with just them working on it."

"I agree and those two saps haven't got a clue as to just how-" Fred was struck by a thought. It was one of those run away stick-wielding thoughts that leave you bashing your head against a wall for your own stupidity in not seeing it coming. "Now wait just a minute, you can't mean to join in on this insanity!"

"But you know it'll take them forever on their own and I don't mean to exactly join them."

"Oh that's just worse," Fred groaned. "So instead of joining Dogboy and Miss priss, you're going to form your own search party?"

Aki nodded, "We'd cover more ground more quickly."

"You cannot be serious!" Fred exclaimed.

"Why not, Fred?" Aki rebuffed him, determined to get her way. "What else have I got to do?"

Fred couldn't believe she was really thinking about doing this. "I don't know," he began reluctantly.

"C'mon Fred, you and I both know there's nothing in particular I need to do," she wheedled gently, "Think of all the people out there being hurt because there are jewel shards being used for evil, right now. Can't we help to hasten their relief from the suffering? You wouldn't want to be the one that decided to prolong their torment, would you?"

Fred had always been terribly susceptible to Aki's well laid guilt traps, being dead hadn't changed that. "I hate you," he reluctantly relented. "Alright, we'll play the hero, but don't expect me to be happy about it."

"Of course not," Aki agreed. "I'll go get my stuff, tell Inuyasha where Kagome went and we'll be on our way."

"What now?"

"Yes now." Aki returned. "I'm already soaking wet and rubbed raw in these wet jeans. Sitting still won't make it feel any better, so lets get a move on while there's still daylight."

"You're terrible," Fred grumbled.

"I really don't understand why you're so worried about this, It's not like you're going to be in mortal peril," Aki thought out loud. "If it really bothers you that much though, I could always just leave you behind."

"You will not!" Fred yelled. "But don't you think you should go get some supplies like you advised Kagome?"

Aki gave Fred a look that had him feeling sheepish. "I packed all that stuff up before I left my apartment."

"Yeah but you don't have all of it with you!" Fred protested.

"I have enough with me to last a little while," Aki informed him.

"You wouldn't if you ate like a normal person," the ghost whined.

"Perhaps not, but that isn't the case now," Aki returned calmly, "is it?"

"Is what?" Inuyasha greeted them at the entrance to Kaede's hut. "Where's Kagome?"

"Kagome went home," Aki informed him.

"What!" the hanyou bellowed before bolting for the well in hot pursuit.

"Guess Kagome was tight," Fred mumbled after him.

"Guess so," Aki agreed as she hauled her bag off the ground.

"Could you not get through?" the old miko asked.

"Didn't try," Aki answered. "Whether I can get through or not, I'd still have a hard time climbing back out."

"Then why do you collect your things?" Kaede inquired.

"She thinks she's going shard hunting," Fred informed the miko.

"You can sense them?"

Aki nodded, "I wasn't sure what it was until Kagome filled me in and I think Kagome and Inuyasha could use some help." The miko nodded with understanding.

"But she's not going to join them," Fred continued, "She's going off on her own."

"We'll cover more ground this way," Aki explained.

Again the old miko nodded, "Would you like a bow for you travels?" Offering her the same as she had offered Kagome previously.

Aki shook her head, "I think I'm better off sticking to things I'm already familiar with."

"If you feel that is wise," Kaede left off. Aki was not as young as Kagome; she wasn't as desperate for advice.

"Of course it's fine!" Hanako energetically jumped in. "I'm going to be with her!"

Aki quietly got up and left, pointedly ignoring the demon's excited gesturing. "Luck be with you, young one," Kaede whispered after the woman as she disappeared into the rain.

"Ah! Aki left without me!" The overly expressive rabbit youkai wailed.

"Aki!" Hanako whined at the back of her beloved. "Why didn't you wait for me?"

Aki paused and glanced back at the rabbit youkai with a sigh. "Hanako, could I ask something of you?"

"Anything," the eager rabbit all but jumped up and down.

Aki gave Fred a silencing look before she turned to Hanako, "I have something most important to ask you-but no, perhaps you wouldn't be able to do it…"

"I can do it!" The little youkai quickly declared.

"But you don't even know what-"

"I can do it, whatever it is!" Hanako continued.

"How can you know that if you don't know what it is? Perhaps you don't even want to do it? It's such an important thing that must be done, not just anyone can do it," Aki mock protested in an overly serious voice.

"I'll know what it is when you tell me and I definitely want to do it, no matter what!" The rabbit youkai stated firmly.

"Are you absolutely sure? I have to be able to trust you to do this no matter what. Even if the sky is no longer blue or all my hair falls out or Kaede creates a love nest for herself. You absolutely have to do this once you say you will," Aki continued gravely.

"You can count on me!" Hanako exclaimed with confidence. "Just tell me what it is!"

"I need you," Aki began and Hanako leaned in closer, "to," and Hanako's little heart began to pound "go back and protect the village."

Hanako blinked. Then blinked again. That was not what she was expecting. The youkai's eyes widened as she realized just what she agreed to. And she couldn't talk her way out of it, she's already agreed to it despite Aki's warnings. And she couldn't complain about it, she'd already declared she wanted to do it. But she could scowl about it, and she did.

"Thanks, Hanako," Aki smiled. "That's a big load off my mind." Aki waved gently as she began to walk away. "Bye Hanako, and remember, no matter what!"

Hanako stared after Aki dumbfounded and kicking herself. With a great, dejected sigh she turned and rejoined Kaede in her hut.

Kaede shook her head after huddling down next to her fire. Perhaps Aki really was fully capable of pulling this off and taking care of herself. After all, She's managed to lose Hanako's company faster than she expected. Kaede lifted her neglected tea to her lips. Only time would tell.


	7. Nuts Ahoy!

Again, with the no reviews! I guess I was misinformed when they told me there really were people out there. You all must be figments of my imagination. And all figments of my imagination absolutely love my fanfiction. Except for one, just to be contrary. And because you're all figments of my imagination and you all love this fic, you all think my writing is absolutely perfect even though I don't believe it.

It's nice to have such an accommodating audience. Almost makes the complete lack of response sound encouraging.

And as always, The Inuyasha cast by rumiko TAkahashi belong to me until my grand children's grand children's grand children die! I figure by that time we'll be living so long only that many generations have passed before my creative lease expires.

**Nuts Ahoy!**

Sometimes the unexpected happens right when you're expecting it. For some people there is a set pattern to the unexpected events in their lives. Perhaps one day you meet someone who is a very nice person. This person is very sociable and ever so helpful with everything you could imagine, but they refuse to see other people on every third day. Strange you may think, but that person knows that something dreadfully unexpected will happen on that third day. They don't know what to expect because it is unexpected, but they know that it will happen on the third day. And so, to minimize the impact of the horrendously unexpected, this person cuts off all contact with others.

In this way, the unexpected is like trouble. Whether you go looking for it or you wait for it to find you, when trouble is near you, youcan sense it. Which is why it is so easy to find.

"If I wasn't already dead, I swear you'd be the death of me!" Fred hollered his frustrations to the sky, not an overly wise thing to do in the middle of a youkai-infested forest. You tend to scare up more than the regular wild life.

Aki ground her teeth together silently. The ghost had done nothing but nag and annoy her the last couple of days and she'd long since given up talking to him for the most part. Besides, what would she say to such a comment? 'Um, I'm terribly sorry, but I already was the death of you.' Aki rolled her eyes, she knew exactly what sort of response that would receive. Fred's classic blatant, noisy denial followed by a continuation of his current attempts to persuade her to go home only ever after punctuated by his vague endeavors to dissuade her of the truth in her own words. Moron!

"Are you listening to me?" the ghost continued rather loudly. "How could you decide to wander off on your own in the _Warring States_ period of Japan armed only with a frying pan and a utility knife? And you even refused to take a weapon from Kaede when she offered it!"

"What would I do with a bow?" Aki asked evenly. "I've never touched one before, seen one up close, let alone be able to use it. I wouldn't even know how to string it properly. A bow," she said with mild disdain.

"Alright," Fred conceded, "What about a knife, a dagger, hell a sword?"

She gave her friend a fairly flat look. "I like my limbs properly attached," indirectly indicating just what her skills with an unfamiliar sharp implement might have caused. "Besides, going obviously armed makes people think that you both know how to properly use it and you expect to need to use it."

"It's still not better to go unarmed!" Fred argued with her.

"But I'm not unarmed," she denied gently. "See Fred I have arms and fingers and hands. Look, I even have legs, feet, and toes too." Aki blinked innocently at him.

"You're not funny," the ghost grumbled darkly.

"Oh, pffftt," Aki blew him off. "You worry too much."

"I do not!"

"Look, Fred, I have all of my limbs, a strong kick, and a brain. Something you must realize will come in handy. All of the above will probably be enough to keep me from any great harm because I'm female and all the bad guys will greatly underestimate me," Aki declared absently. "And if that isn't enough, I have a sturdy iron skillet to swing at the head of whatever comes near me. They don't use it as a weapon in cartoons for no reason, you know."

"I still think it would've been wiser for you to have brought along _some_thing that was designed as a weapon!" Fred whined. "What about a gun? Couldn't you have brought a gun?"

"Fred," Aki began blandly, "Put your hand up in front of your face."

The ghost blinked at her queer demand; perhaps she really was going crazy. Best to appease the insane woman, so he did as she practically ordered him to.

When she saw him hold his hand up she continued, "Good! Now run into it as you realize the monumental stupidity of what you just suggested."

"You're not funny!" Fred glowered at his friend and anchor.

"I'm serious," Aki glared right back at him. "I can't believe you would suggest such a thing, or did the possibility of time travel and its likely side effects never come up in any of those Sci-Fi shows you watched?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well let's step back to the comment you just thoughtlessly blurted out and examine the situation using some of your profound Sci-Fi knowledge, hmm?" her voice turned acidically sardonic. "We know that we are now in Sengoku Jidai, which places us approximately 500 years prior to the time I left my apartment. By the laws of logic and nature this is _not_ possible, but here we are. Now, we run the risk of changing history in ways that are incalculable. So, we should try to minimize our impact here, meaning we want to leave as little evidence of a visitor from another time and another country as possible.

"You suggested bringing a gun along for the ride." Aki snorted derisively "Lets put aside the fact that I do not own a gun nor know how to use one and focus on the pure idiocy of the idea itself. The fact that we are currently encased by an environment that will be nothing more than a distant memory by the time we're born and I know they were sill using muskets and muzzle loading cannons in the war for what will be the United States more than 300 years from now indicates that a gun, practically any gun that I could get a hold of would absolutely scream 'Hi! Foreign time altering artifact here!' Suppose it got stolen or lost? Worse, what if I actually used the damn thing? Do you have any idea as to how to disguise a bullet wound? Because I sure don't. Let's not forget having to track down and retrieve _every_ bullet shot just to be absolutely certain some archaeologist can never get a hold of it and realize that a bullet with last year's serial numbers appears to have survived 500 years of history to prove the existence of time travel.

"And that's simply barring the possibility that some average person sees it in action and manages to figure out how to make it years before it would've been invented by someone else. Thereby forever shifting around who is the military power in the world. Imagine the change to history!" Aki gave him another reproving glare, "and all because you wanted to bring a gun!"

"Alright, so maybe it wasn't the brightest thing I've ever said." Aki's flat look caused him to change his statement. "Okay, so it was a completely stupid and recklessly moronic thing to say. See, this is my forehead running into my hand repeatedly." Funny thing about ghosts, they are completely intangible, even to themselves. The only thing that saved Fred's hand from coming in contact with the back of his head after passing through his eyes, nostrils and somewhat bad haircut was his soul's memory of what his body's dimensions had been. In actuality the only strange thing about Fred smacking himself was the lack of sound on contact.

It was because of Fred's silent head smacking and the conclusion of the argument that they were able to overhear someone else's argument.

"I really wish gramps would just grow up!" a rather small and frustrated voice vehemently exploded from the ground a few trees over.

"Watch what you say," another voice scolded from the lowest branch of a tree. "You should respect your elders!"

"I'll respect my elders when they start acting their age!" the first voice retorted.

Fred and Aki shared a bewildered look before following the sounds.

"They've even taken to competing over whom can more viciously guard their perceived territory!" the little voice went on. "It's worse than when they tried to out procreate each other! The whole community's near to starvation because of their on-going food-harvesting competition which they started so long ago nobody can remember ever eating to the point of being full anymore. All my family has long ago relocated because of the neighbor's hostility and the constant run ins with the squirrels. Gramps' intolerable childishness grates on my nerves!"

"I do agree that this has gone on long enough, Kashi." A long-eared owl youkai answered what now appeared to be a young chipmunk youkai. "Unfortunately, your Grandfather and his self-proclaimed rival have slighted and upset so many of the community that there's no clean cut way to end it without somebody getting hurt."

"After the incident a couple days ago, some of the older members of the community are talking blood," Kashi related to the elder bird. "I'm afraid of what will happen to gramps. I mean I was worried before when his health went bad on him, but now…"

"Sounds like you could use an outside party to mediate the problem," Aki spoke quietly, trying to be as polite as possible, though butting into someone else's conversation is rude by definition. "An uninvolved individual would be able to rectify the situation in a manner uninfluenced by personal feelings or threats from the people they would have to live with after a judgment has been made."

"The idea holds merit, except for the whole stranger part," the old Owl began, warily eyeing the new comers. "After all, not all Strangers are friendly and trustworthy."

"How very true," the no longer silent Fred agreed. "But then, if nobody trusted anybody else, how would strangers become friends that can help us?"

"You do have a point," the owl agreed.

"And your problem seems to be a somewhat desperate one," Aki added. "One that needs to be resolved."

"What are you after?" Kashi accused the strangers.

"To help you, nothing more," Aki answered.

"Yeah you wanna help us, help us into an early grave!" the young chipmunk declared, not even attempting to hide her healthy suspicion.

"Kashi!" the long eared owl scolded the younger youkai.

"It's quite alright," Aki assured him. "We won't take offense. These are hard times, and there are untrustworthy people in abundance these days. It is generally much safer for an individual to be wary of the unknown with so many bad influences out in the countryside."

"Stop trying to get on Torafu-zuku's good side!" Kashi ordered. "He's definitely not going to fall for your all innocent act."

"Kashi!" the owl tried again to contain the youngling's rampant paranoia.

Aki just smiled at the little chipmunk before hunkering down to the six inch tall Kashi. "You are quite right to suspect travelers of dishonesty little one, but you should be a little more careful in just how much of your suspicion you let strangers know. For one thing, you have just declared what you suspect me of, and if I were such a person, you really shouldn't give people ideas. Also, you should never give away your name or the names of your companions. Treat this information like a profound treasure that you share with friends and family only. Thanks to you I now know the name of your good friend Torafu-zuku. You should also be more careful of your surroundings when discussing private information, lest it be overheard as it just was." Aki reached out and tapped the little chipmunk youkai on the nose. "Lucky for you I am not the type to exploit this sort of information. AS I'm sure you're elder, wiser friend was going to point out to you; it is _very_ rude to accuse people of things before you have proof of any wrongdoing." She paused before continuing, "What I'd like to point out to you on my own, and I'm sure Torafu-zuku in his vast experiences could support my suggesting that if a supposed ruse looks so incredibly and quite painfully genuine it probably is true. Fred is quite dead. Just who would go to the trouble of being or getting killed just so a stranger can come here with a ghost in tow to exploit a somewhat widely known and long standing community issue?"

"Nobody, that's who," Fred grumbled. "And for the record I've been dead over a year."

"Now," Aki finished pointing out the stupidity of Kashi's accusations, "all that remains is you two's decision to either accept our help and trust in our good will and judgment as will be seen by the majority of your community and then accepted by it if it is sound or not. Either way, you will not being seeing us very long. We're passing through on our own business."

Kashi's moment to feel sheepish came and went like a breath of air once in, then right back out again. Immediately on the heels of it came her anger at being made a fool of. "I don't care! I want no part of it!" she declared and disappeared into the miscellaneous underbrush.

Aki gazed after the little chipmunk, "It's just as well, if we were presented to the community by you and her, half the community might assume we were biased by her view on the situation." She paused in thought, "You're not especially affiliated with any one group in the community are you?"

Torafu-zuku chuckled, "Not particularly. I'm the oldest of the elders and most the rest of the community defers to me in my greater experience." He sighed tiredly, "Though they might take ill to strangers passing judgment on the situation, I don't think there will be any serious objections."

"Well, on the plus side we won't have to worry about it too much," Fred pointed out, "I mean, we can always just leave."

Aki raised an amused eyebrow at Fred's homing in on the 'walk away option'. He most assuredly was not thrilled to be acting the mediator. A sudden semi-familiar tingle distracted her from the subject of Fred's reluctance. Directly on the heels of the tingle came a bird flying in a panic.

The ridiculously puff-like bird alighted on the branch next to Torafu-zuku and related his news so quickly it was unintelligible to Aki and her ghost friend. They did however, understanding the old owls instant bolt through the trees. They immediately followed the trail of dislodged leaves that marked the trail after him.

Their first true warning of what was ahead started as a dull but constant hum of noise. "IS there normally so much noise in the middle of the forest this time of day?" Fred asked as his unease grew with each passing second. Inane chatter and sarcasm were his defense against anxiety.

Aki dipped her hand into her shoulder bag to extract her iron skillet. Their future looked to be full of trouble of a somewhat violent nature, the noise told her that much. She really didn't think the Forest youkai were all that different from their near silent animal neighbors, so whatever it was that had set them all off must be serious in nature.

"What the hell could be…" and Aki stumbled upon the scene of chaos before Fred could finish the question.

"I say we drown the both of them in the river, they've done more than enough to deserve it!" a rather disgruntled badger shouted above the rest, only to be followed up by a louder voice of a bear. "Nay! Roast them! Burn them! Drowning would be too quick and painless!"

A score of squirrels burst out almost in chorus, "It's the chipmunk's fault! Burn him! Drown _Him_!" to which a single chipmunk voice shrieked in indignation, "Don't even try to blame it all on my Grandfather, you great big bunch of feather dusters!"

"Who you calling a feather duster!" a particularly robust male squirrel jumped up and poked the younger, smaller chipmunk in the chest. The little chipmunk's response was drowned out by the sudden violent snarling of the older chipmunk and squirrel that were quite obviously the source of the crowd's maniacal rage. The rustle of long ears alerted Aki to the presence of some of Hanako's people and even more birds rustled in the branches over the chaos.

And in the middle of the free-for-all, Torafu-zuku flew trying to figure out just what had set it all off.

It didn't take long for Aki to decide the noise had gone on long enough. She hefted the skillet and promptly smacked into the bear, the elder squirrel and chipmunk. Profound silence convened as the ring from the pan began to dissipate. "Now that we have some semblance of order, shall we attempt to figure this out, hmm?" Aki said to the wary creatures that stared at her. "First off we should make sure everybody knows just what has happened. Fred, care to start?"

"Gladly," the ghost began, cheerfully smug. "My friend, Aki," he gestured to her, "and I just stumbled across a rather noisy lynch mob in the middle of an otherwise charmingly quiet forest. We then watched as a somewhat large and angry bear youkai lunged at a granther squirrel and grandpa chipmunk here. I can only assume that the bear was so blinded by rage that the fact that such a move would've inevitably lead to the possibly fatal flattening of two rabbit youkai, a smattering of mice youkai and a walking stick youkai. In order to prevent this accidental carnage my friend stepped up very carefully and stunned the bear with her wonderfully sturdy pan. She stunned the old squirrel and chipmunk for good measure because one had moved to snap his teeth at a particularly young looking badger youkai while the other tried to claw the poor thing. Aki does not tolerate violence to children and that's what I know happened." Fred concluded to a mass of confused and slightly shame faced crowd of youkai. "Who's next Torafu-zuku?"

"You brought these strangers into our midst?" the robust young squirrel accused the old owl.

"You think they wouldn't have been drawn by so much noise in the middle of the forest?" the little chipmunk mocked his accusation as she rubbed the spot on her chest that had previously been abused. "Are you sure you have a brain in your thick head?" To which the squirrel retaliated by throwing a fist that was successfully dodged before a deer youkai and another rabbit jumped in to restrain them and the shouting broke out again.

Torafu-zuku flew over to Aki and rapped a hardened talon on the skillet until it out rang the crowd. "Everyone will quiet and remember their manners!" he shouted as the mob slowly returned to order. "The next time somebody gets out of line, feel free to apply that marvelous pan of yours again," he suggested to the side in a stage whisper. "We _are_ going to be civilized about this even if we have to rely on strangers to enforce the peace!"

"We can't even trust our own and you want us to trust these," and here the especially outspoken young squirrel's face was twisted into a scowl of disgust, "others? _They_ won't have to live with whatever is decided!"

"It is for that reason exactly that you should want them to make this decision!" The old owl gave the youth a rather droll look. "Actually I'm surprised you would be against this. Do you think your greatly wronged and much angered neighbors are likely to judge your wrong doings in a fair if not kind manner? Especially after this last turn of events?" Torafu-zuku looked away dismissing the boys seeming lack of intelligence, "Attacking the young of another youkai is a terrible offence with severe consequences. And the community has quite had enough of your grandsire's never-ending competition with the old chipmunk. A behavior you and your brethren have taken to following. Do you think a community that has been galvanized into action over one such squirrel will desire to leave other such creatures in their midst to have the same effect?"

The young Squirrel blanched at the direction he saw the old owl heading in. If the community acted in the way most Youkai societies would, he might well be looking at his own execution in the near future at the hands of his neighbors… "Ah, yes," he squeaked out, "let the strangers be judge!"

Aki gazed down at the little rodent, "While I do thank you for your approval, my decision isn't likely to be more than empty words if the whole community does not deign to follow what I suggest be done."

"That is a valid concern," Torafu-zuku concurred. "Which is why this community is going to swear, right now, that your judgment will be honored by all present." He increased his volume sharply, "Anyone who does not so swear to uphold the decisions reached today will be declared no better than a rabid animal and will be game to any youkai for whatever purpose!"

A cricket chirped in the encompassing silence and was immediately shushed. A tremulous voice offered an apology and "I chirp when I'm nervous" as explanation.

"Are we agreed then? These strangers shall pass judgment on the events of this day and the punishment thereby meted out will be honored as it was given," his round eyes stared at each and every creature within sight. "Any who disagree, speak now or find yourself sworn to this agreement." He waited a long moment in which no sound was heard. "Then it is settled."

"Before we start," Aki spoke evenly, "I would like the young chipmunk and vocal squirrel to collect the Shikon shards from their respective grandfathers and place them here," she indicated a flat rock well in view of the entire gathering amidst a group of rabbit youkai and a quadrant of Butterfly youkai. "No one is to touch them until a decision has been rendered in regards to the accused and then about the shards. I assure you I will try to be as fair as possible, but be warned, I will not use death as punishment. The dead feel nothing, suffer nothing, learn nothing, and atone for nothing. Only the living can." Fred was going to interrupt, but Aki's sharp pointy look impaled the words before they could escape him. "May I please have this space around my feet cleared so I can sit through this endeavor?" A flurry of motion about her ankles made it apparent just how important that question was. A good-sized number of mice, crickets, and various other ground insects evacuated the area. "Is that everyone?" She asked just to be safe.

"I believe so," an extremely brave mouse squeaked out from his new place of cover.

"Thank you," she replied politely and sat down on the ground. "Now," Aki began assuming a rather authoritative tone, "Torafu-zuku, call on the accusers, please."

The informally appointed bailiff addressed the large group of youkai, "Alright then, who saw what started all this?"

"I did," a rather timid, young rabbit youkai raised her slightly clawed hand.

"Alright then, tell us what you saw," the owl encouraged the quaking creature.

"I was running an errand for my grandmam when I heard a scuffle, like creatures fussin' or fightin' in ways that they shouldn't. So I went to see what it was. My mam's always telling me I should mind my own doings rather than worry over the doings of others, but this didn't sound right. I came 'round that tree right there and saw these two old blackguards, if you pardon me for saying so, a-laying into that young badger tha's partial to playing real nice with the little wee rabbits. He's recently gotten real attached to this one young male who's been real sick-like. Everybody's been saying that if the little mite could just get a bit more to eat he'd perk right up-"the little female rabbit went off on a tangent as she picked at her clothes nervously.

"Yes, yes, child," Torafu-zuku interrupted her. "Can you get back to what you saw?"

"Sorry," the female mumbled as a congenial chuckle rippled through the crowd.

"It's alright," Aki offered her a smile for comfort, "please continue."

The rabbit youkai took a deep breath of courage before continuing to speak. "Right, I saw them two going at the young badger and I know it's not right. Toga's a real gentle creature and still too young for his mam to start teaching him how to fight. I'm a bit older and my mam's already taught me quite a bit, but none of our kind is strong enough to stand alone in the face of those two mad creatures. But I know Toga won't last much longer so's I decided to try to help him the way my mam's been trying to teach me. I managed to stop them, but I knows it won't last long as I send my pet cricket for more help. They was just breaking free when Yama-sama and that gang of squirrels showed up," the bear youkai nodded his head when Aki raised a questioning eyebrow at the name. "After that, the crowd just kept getting bigger and bigger. Then you came and it got quiet and I told you what I saw," the little rabbit finished up, twitching her black and white ears happily relieved that it was done.

"Thank you," Aki dismissed her.

"Anyone else See something before the rabbit?" Torafu-zuku addressed the group.

"Oh, hem-hem," the puff-bird that had lead them into this mess spoke up. "I saw, I did, before the little long-ear, hem-hem. I saw little three stripe, yes, the goodly gentle one carrying the little sick long-ear, hem-hem. The sick long-ear was making much noise, wailing you see, heard him, yes. Three stripe was trying to quiet the sick long-ear, offered to find sick long-ear some food, hem-hem. Bad tempered ground-rat and tree-mouse heard too, near their storing ground three stripe was, Ground-rat and tree-mouse assume three stripe will steal from them, accuse him they do, hem-hem. Three stripe try to protect little long-ear, hide long-ear behind three stripe. Ground-rat and tree-mouse assume three stripe is hiding stolen food, they do, hem-hem. Ground-rat and tree-mouse attack Three stripe, I leave, go for help, hem-hem. Where little sick long-ear, Long-ear alright?"

Aki blinked at the first semi-intelligible thing the bird had said. "A little clarification please, three stripe is?

"Toga," The young female that had previously witnessed offered in translation. "Ground-rat is Yuuji, the old chipmunk. Tree-mouse is Kado, the old squirrel. And the little sick Long-ear is the mite I was talking about before, he doesn't have a name yet. He's got another year before he gets one.

"Well, where is he, please?" Aki asked. "Our good friend has asked after his safety and I find myself curious as to his whereabouts as well."

A buck called softly from the edge of the crowd, "He's right here. He's seem alright, but we can't seem to get him to wake."

"May I see him?" Aki asked gently.

It took a bit of fancy footwork and concerted effort to finally carry the baby youkai into Aki's arms. Once she caught a good look at the little thing she immediately dug through her bag for a bottle of water and a metal spoon. She placed both on the pan she upturned on the ground before her foray into the depths of her shoulder bag. Aki then carefully poured a bit of water into the bowl of the spoon. Taking the tip of her finger, she dipped into the water and proceeded to wet the fur on his little face.

Almost immediately, the little thing began to rouse. Once he was awake enough, Aki lifted the spoon to his tiny mouth and began to trickle water between his lips. The little thing grasped onto the bowl of the spoon firmly and quickly drained it of its contents, almost whimpering when it ran out. The spoon was quickly refilled and drained again. The very round eyes that gazed up at her were wary and terribly tired looking. Aki then dug out a little bag of trail mix and scooped up a small handful of nuts and raisins to pass on to the little tyke.

After the food was gobbled up hastily, she handed the baby youkai back to his deer keeper. "We'll address care for him and Toga later. Right not let's continue where we left off. Did anyone else see anything?" she asked the audience before her.

When no one else came forward Torafu-zuku took up the inquiry and it was again met with silence.

"So we've exhausted the list of accusers that saw something. Now for the accused, Kado first," Aki ordered.

"I object to his going first!" Yuuji yelled. "He'll only incriminate me before I have a chance to speak my piece!"

"Well, I'm most certainly not letting you go first!" Kado yelled back. "Besides, I'm the better youkai here so I should go first!"

"Like he-" Yuuji's retort was cut off by the loud banging of a spoon on the back of a frying pan.

"Enough!" Aki practically growled. "Since it seems you can not spare us your childish antics and behave like responsible adults, the both of you are restricted from speech unless given a direct question. You will not move unless given leave to do so by a direct statement from me!" she took a deep breath before continuing. "Now, Kado, did you think Toga was going to steal from you?"

"Of course, he practically said he was going to," the squirrel answered sullenly.

"Are you the only creature in the forest that has food, Yuuji?" Aki demanded cutting off the belligerent answer Kado was preparing to give.

"No, that damn feather duster has quite a store of food too," the old chipmunk answered as disdainfully as the old 'feather duster' had been.

"Does no one else in the forest have access to this food? Kado?" Aki continued her questioning.

"Of course not. They didn't gather it, did they?" Kado replied.

"Are there a lot of hungry youkai in the area, Yuuji?"

"I'm confused by the question."

"I was merely wondering if there are a lot of creatures around here that don't get enough food to eat. Yuuji, do you know if there are?"

"I suppose some less industrious creatures might be."

"Less industrious?" She couldn't believe it. The old chipmunk was trying to tell her the starving community wasn't getting enough to eat because they weren't working hard enough. "Are his parents," Aki indicated the sickly little youkai, "his family not working hard to try to feed their young?"

The buck looked affronted at the insinuation, "We all work to gather enough food for the young. We work very hard, there just isn't enough to go around anymore."

Aki nodded before directing her attention to the rabbit youkai that had previously spoken. "Why is there not enough food? Does the forest not supply all that is needed for your continued survival?"

"Those two horrible creatures gather all the nuts and seeds before they have chance to sprout. There are no new greens, needed to keep young ones strong, no nuts to see us through the winter because we are forced to eat them right after they're harvested for there is nothing else to eat. Berries and fruit, what little is left after they get to 'em, go quickly and are seasonal." The little female answered.

And then the slowly calming bear spoke, "We larger youkai that would normally feed on the small animals of the forest are feeling this shortage as well. The lack of new growth has sent a good number of the forest animals to other areas in search of food, and I grow tired of fish," The great size of 'Yama-sama' shifted against a tree.

Aki nodded to the great bear before resuming her questions. "Why is it that you, Kado, have a surplus while your neighbor's children slowly starve?"

"How should I know?" came his disinterested reply.

"Why do you, Kado, and your chipmunk friend here gather so much food?"

"He is not my friend!"

"That is immaterial, answer the question, Kado."

"Because I swore I could gather more than that damned striped rock-kisser!"

"And you swore the same Yuuji?"

"Yes."

"Could either of you eat the whole of even one of your stores Yuuji?"

"That's very unlikely, though that glutton of a feather duster might certainly try."

"How long are stored nuts good for Torafu-zuku?" Aki asked.

"Quite a while. They could probably stop gathering and live off their stores until well past their likely extermination date," the owl answered blandly.

"Really," Aki said with interest. "Now for Toga please."

"Toga?" the buck asked incredulously.

"Yes, Toga," Aki repeated. "We're going for the full picture and his is the last piece of it."

"You think you can do this boy?" the still somewhat disgruntled badger tenderly asked the younger one.

"I'm fine!" Toga growled, embarrassed by the fuss.

"I'm glad to know you're alright," Aki began mildly with concealed amusement. "Now I'm going to ask you some questions and I would like you to answer them, okay?" Toga nodded bravely. "Alright. It's been said that you offered to get your young friend some food, is this true?"

"Yes," the young badger answered.

"Where did you plan to get this food?"

"I'm not sure but I would've gotten it! He needed it!"

"Would you have taken it from Kado or Yuuji?"

"NO!" he fairly shrieked as his voice cracked with fear.

"Why not?"

"I know they would've never given it to us because they never have in the past. Besides the way they've been lately, everybody's been a little afraid of breathing wrong around them."

"Don't they have a lot of food?"

"Heck yeah! Just one of their stores would feed the whole community for a couple seasons, easy. I overheard the bragging squirrels say so, just last week. They like rubbing it in the face of the little ones when their stomachs would growl from hunger."

Aki's eyes flashed somewhat with outrage, but she controlled it. "That does seem like a lot of food." Toga nodded. "You say Yuuji and Kado have been more stand-offish lately? More likely to take offense or think ill of others?"

"Yeah," Toga trembled slightly. "There's not a lot of animals left in the forest anymore now that the foods gone scarce, but what few there is we try to be careful of. They," his voice cracked at the memory," just a couple days ago they mauled a fawn. A tiny little thing, still in its spots. They said it had grazed too close to their trees. They've never claimed the trees before! The poor thing couldn't walk and could hardly see. Yama-sama had to put it down 'cause it could never get better again! It was so terrible and the sounds it made," Toga shuddered, his eyes tearing up in remembered horror.

The older badger cuddled the younger one, attempting to soothe away the bad memory. Aki merely sighed in sorrow. One couldn't soothe away bad memories, you could only bury them in more pleasant ones until the horror and pain of it didn't seem so overwhelming.

She sighed before addressing the full gathering "I have made my decision, and the punishment shall be suiting for the crimes against this community. But first, I would like to commend Toga for his quick thinking and bravery in protecting his younger, weaker friend in the only ways he had to hand. My compliments to the young rabbit youkai for interfering in such a wise and level-headed manner. Restraining the aggressive parties rather than attempting to fight in a reckless manner was the right thing to do to prevent this mess from becoming an all-out tragedy. I'd also like to thank the bird that wisely went for help. Because of you this situation was not allowed to dissolve into a murderous mob lynching that would've scarred the community just a surely as these long-term harvesting fools have already.

"As for Yuuji and Kado, the main culprits responsible for this upheaval, your conduct is and has been reprehensible. Saying something and doing it are two different things, you jumped to conclusions in a situation that has been a long time in coming due to your own foolish actions. You are ordered to open Kado's food stores immediately for the benefit of the community. The food will be wisely managed and dispensed to those in need of it throughout all of this winter and into next summer until the food runs out. Then Yuuji's stores will likewise be opened to community use for the following cold season. There will be no harvesting of anything during the next warm season. Everything will be allowed to fall where it will and sprout or not as nature decides. The harvesting season following the opening of Yuuji's food stores will be time for moderate food gathering. Yuuji and Kado will not be allowed to eat freshly harvested food or harvest anything until the final food in their stores have been exhausted.

"After their stores are emptied, their harvesting competition may resume, but with community set limits. I suggest a time limit or a cap. The community will set these limits but they may not make the competitions impossible to conduct and they cannot outlaw the competitions. Personally, I'd have them harvest all the food for the community since they enjoy their stupid competitions so much.

"That brings me to my next stipulation. In the future, if Yuuji and Kado manage to harvest a surplus, they will share with those less fortunate. A community cannot stand on the achievements of a few if those few do not take care of those less talented than themselves in some things.

"Lastly, since you have already proven yourselves incapable of responsibly conducting yourselves while in ownership of the Shikon shards, they will be permanently removed from your possession. The community will have to decide what to do with them beyond that, but rest assured they will not be returned to Yuuji or Kado.

"Yama-sama, I would ask that you enforce these decrees I've made if you find them to be justified and fair. If you find either Kado or Yuuji Harvesting food before their stores have been exhausted and there is enough food contained there in to last them out the coming season I want you to thump them once. If you find them breaking the rules set by the community for their continued competitions, I want you to thump them. But remember I said only to thump them, not kill, and not render them insensible. They will not learn the lesson if they cannot remember it."

Aki studiously watched the reactions of her semi-captive audience. "If there are any strong objections, please, raise them now while I am still here to address them."

"I object!"

"Hell, yeah I don't like it!" Yuuji and Kado practically yelled in a race to voice their upset first.

Aki raised an eyebrow, "Oh? Then please do itemize your objections and recite them in a civilized manner, but keep in mind that unless your food stores have magically shrunk down to barely being enough for you to survive the coming barren season with difficulty, you stores _will _be opened and shared." Her stern statement had quite fully taken the wind out of Kado's sails, but not Yuuji's.

"I'm worried that whomever will be in charge of the food distribution will short myself and my family out of their own feelings of abuse whether those feelings are justified or not," Yuuji stated his concern.

"That's a very valid concern. I would suggest that the community elect a group to take care of managing the food and that the group should include a representative for the chipmunks and the squirrels to be absolutely certain that it doesn't happen, but I am not a part of the community and it is up to your neighbors to decide. I will however feel very disappointed should such a petty revenge be exacted by manipulating the punishment I have dealt in order to help that community. If you were to be starved as they have been, it would make me responsible and I would forever have that darkness besmirching my future. It would be quite a horrible group to wish that upon a stranger that has done nothing but help you, but there is nothing I can do about it," Aki sighed.

"I will most certainly not allow your fair and just help to this entire community and its future to be so tainted," Torafu-zuku declared with vehemence. "And I _am_ a part of the community. If these creatures are the good creatures I've always thought them to be, they most certainly feel the same. The punishment is just and good. The judgment passed fair and unbiased. If we cannot honor what you have offered for us, then we are no better than the common animals we shepherd."

Fred shared a sardonic look with Aki who just shrugged before applying all her attention back to the crowd. "Does anyone else have a problem with my decision or its application?" She gazed over the assembled youkai, "Speak now or be bound by it."

Again the lone cricket chirped and the crowd gave a nervous chuckle. Aki grinned in shared amusement. "Then the matter is closed."


	8. Burning Balls of Light

Hurray! It's my Birthday and anybody that doesn't wish me a happy one will be sent to their own ring of HELL! wink just kidding. You know, I realized the other day that nobody has brought up any concerns with some of the stuff that happens in this fick. Am I not helping you to suspend reality enough for you to find anything unlikely to happen within the bounds of this fic?

NAh, that can't be it. Everything just makes sense to everybody without my having to explain it. I'm glad to know that everybody can follow my leaps of logic and inconsistant trains of thought, though it doesn't say much for my creativity if everybody thinks like me. Maybe this story is just concidered a carbon copy of someone else's?

Nope, not likely. Fred takes care of that. And so does Hanako. Not to mention Aki and all the little characters in the last chapter.

I'm still laughing that nobody questioned Torafu-Zuku's name. It means (literally) Long-eared Owl. Heehee, I looked it up. that's the name of the animal. And as for the other animals. I couldn't find if there really are chipmunks in Japan, but there are squirrels and the Japanese ecological system naturally supports most of the animals, plants, and climates of almost everywhere else in the world simply because the archepeligo of Japan is so wide spread across Lattitudes. But you don't care about that.

Hey look a distraction! I'm currently working on extending my lease over the Inuyasha characters with Rumiko TAkahashi. It's looking good that I may get to keep them even longer. It helps when you threaten with mild violence and extremely embarassing situations!

**Burning Balls of Light**

While some problems are easily resolved, others are not quite so uninvolved. Granted most are of the uninvolved type. Any problem in math, science, and house keeping are pretty much always uninvolved, they can be delegated to someone else or there is but a single solution so the path is clear. When dealing with or leading sentient beings this is never the case. There is no straightforward resolution and a multitude of possible routes to the desired goal. A wise and lucky leader will strive to take the most efficient path whilst stepping on as few toes as possible.

Most leaders are seldom ever that lucky, and not all are wise. Some are ruthless and, while they do succeed to some extent, always die young as their past slighted followers come back to bite them in the ass. Other leaders cater too much to the egos of the followers and seldom, if ever, accomplish anything worth the effort that went into it. Every leader, whether they are wise and lucky or Ruthless or ineffectual, will one day feel a somewhat desperate need to hand over the reins, if only temporarily, so that they can become involved in the problem rather than try to fix it.

Today was Torafu-zuku's day, and Aki was the poor slum that got stuck with the job.

"Now that all that is dealt with, the community must decide what to do with the Shikon no Kakera," Aki steered the discussion.

"Hey, what about Toga and the sick youngling?" the elder badger called. "You said you would address their recovery needs."

"Mom, I'm fine!" Toga growled under his breath.

"Oh I will, but I wanted the community to discuss what they wanted to do with the Shikon shards," Aki reassured the worried badger. "We can decide what to do about Toga and our sick friend now instead, if you'd prefer."

"I would!" The badger declared. "Young are more important than any pieces of glass!"

"Normally I would agree with you," the bear said gently. "But these aren't just any pieces of glass and their existence here has already threatened the well-being of two young ones."

"I must agree with Yama-sama," the buck from before spoke quietly. "Those two have always been ornery, but it wasn't until recently that they moved to pit themselves physically at another creature. We are lucky we have this chance to remove the shards now before much more damage could be wrought."

"What's so special about those stupid shards anyway?" Toga asked loudly as the side discussions began to grow in volume.

"The Shikon no Tama was said to be able to grant great power to whomever held it," Torafu-zuku informed the youth. "Many of the more greedy youkai fought to possess it and many died for it." The old owl sighed sadly. "We lost a good number to the wars that developed over that little bauble and the cruelty the possession of it engendered, let just say that the torture Yuuji and Kado meted out on that hapless fawn doesn't even compare."

"But I thought it disappeared fifty years ago," an anonymous mouse called from his camouflaged vantage point.

"It did, but a young friend of mine was born with it embedded in her side," Aki informed the crowd.

"She was born with it, did you say?" an elder rabbit youkai asked. "Did she know that?"

"No," Aki shook her head. "She, like our friend Toga, didn't even know what the Shikon no Tama was until it was ripped from her body." Aki took a drink of water from her bottle. "Then it was broken by accident in an otherwise desperate situation."

"And those are the result," Fred pointed to the innocuous looking pieces of glass. "This friend of ours'll be going around to try and collect and purify them."

"Unfortunately, she's just one inexperienced Miko-in-training and there happen to be quite a few shards. So we're trying to help." Fred continued after a pause. Aki raised a sardonic eyebrow at the 'we' bit, he wasn't capable of doing anything except nag her to turn back from this endeavor.

"Or you could just want them for yourself!" Kashi yelled over the crowd.

"I never said I was collecting them," Aki remonstrated the young youkai. "I said I would like for the shards to leave the community, but the community will decide. Whether the shards stay here or go with us, Kagome will be informed of where to look for them." She made a point of letting them all know. "It's Kagome's job to gather and protect them. It's her duty to see that the shards are purified so that they can't cause anymore harm. If you'd rather hang on to those shards in their current impure state, that's your prerogative," she shrugged diffidently.

"Oh, you won't take them huh? What're you gonna have your pet ghost take them then?" Kashi demanded still stuck on the dishonesty of strangers.

Fred gave off a deep and mangled sound of frustration and annoyance before he threw a punch at the little chipmunk. Of course his hand passed right through Kashi, absolutely terrifying both her and her grandfather. "Oh yeah! I'm a real threat! Look at me! I can't touch anything!" he yelled sulkily.

"Fred," Aki yelled sharply, "behave!"

"I thought I was!" he whined petulantly. "I mean really, how can a ghost misbehave?"

Aki coughed to hide a smile, as Torafu-zuku didn't bother. "How young was he when he died?" the old owl chuckled.

"A lot younger than he'd have you think," Aki replied evenly. "But we were discussing, or rather you were discussing the Shikon shards.'

"We did get a bit off topic didn't we," Yama-sama commented.

"Wouldn't have happened if Kashi could keep her rampant paranoia to herself!" Toga teased the chipmunk.

"I am not paranoid!" shouted Kashi defensively.

"We're getting off topic again," the elder badger grumbled in annoyance.

"Quite right, where were we?" Torafu-zuku asked slightly confused.

"We were deciding whether to start with the shards or the young ones," the buck answered gently.

"Ah yes," Torafu-zuku began.

"Take care of the shards," Toga said firmly, "me and the little bunny'll keep. I'm fine and he just needed some food. He's gotten some. Get on with it!"

"Both should be fairly quick decisions no matter which goes first," Aki pointed out.

"Why don't we just have you decide again?" Yama-sama asked.

"Because this case I'd be slightly biased about," Aki replied truthfully.

"What would you do if you could make the decision without consulting the community?" the old badger asked curiously.

"I would first decide to send Toga and the little rabbit youkai to a neighboring community or village. I just happen to have one in mind," Aki alluded to Kaede's village without giving it away. "Of course I would offer something in trade for the necessary care and greens, something like the wood of fallen trees or something that I happen to have an abundance of that would be of value to them. If all else fails, being that this is a youkai community, I would offer protection or aid, something of that nature.

"With that having been decided I would then try to get the shards into safe hands, preferably outside of the community." Aki paused and took a deep breath. "Given that a rather large problem of the community has just been dealt with by a passing stranger who's treatment of the situation seems to have received some small amount of praise for the decency and honor conveyed by it, I might be tempted to ask this stranger, who has already confessed to wanting the shards merely to return them to their rightful place, to take the shards."

Fred smirked, "Basically, just ask for outside help for the kiddies and find the most expedient, seemingly safe way to get rid of the shards."

Aki shrugged and nodded, "I told you I was biased," she said to the badger.

"And terribly long winded!" Fred teased.

"At least I have to stop to breathe," Aki retorted.

"I suggest we follow the human's advice," Yama-sama spoke over the crowd.

"Anyone against?" Torafu-zuku asked.

"I ob-" Kashi's objection was cut off by a sharp poke in the ribs from her grandfather.

"Enough! Your fears are unfounded, even I realize that and her judgment was against me," Yuuji hissed at her.

"I'll ask again, does anyone oppose this suggestion?" There wasn't even a cricket chirping this time, the silence wasn't nervous. "Alright, where's this village you had in mind?"

"Two days leisurely walk due east of here. And by leisurely I meant really slow with lots of stops for rest because air head here nagged me the whole way and I refuse to walk through him," Aki pointed east while glaring at Fred. "I'm not sure if Kagome or Inuyasha'll still be there, but Kaede, the village miko, assuredly will be. And Hanako, a hyper rabbit youkai, should be there too."

"Hanako?" the rabbit witness gasped.

"Know her?" Fred asked a bit sarcastically.

"Hanako was banished from the community as soon as she reached adulthood," the old owl informed them.

"I always thought she was hilarious, but the rabbits… well, the males most certainly couldn't wait to be rid of her and the females' enthusiasm was only slightly less," Yama-sama grinned at them.

"Sounds like her alright," Fred nodded with his own grin plastered on his face.

Aki sighed. "Just because she was banished from here does not mean you can't go there. And the females probably won't have as much to worry about anymore."

"Oh?" the rather talkative rabbit youkai spoke again.

"She's become rather fixated on Aki," Fred beamed at them.

"Oh I'm terribly sorry," the same rabbit apologized.

Aki just shrugged, "What for? She hasn't hurt anyone."

"Unless you count Inuyasha's Ego as a separate entity!" Fred laughed.

"I feel kind of responsible," the little rabbit sighed.

"Why?" The ghost asked still slightly lost in his mirth.

"Hanako-nee-san is my big sister," she replied.

"You don't say," Fred sobered a bit, a little intrigued by the utter opposite characteristics between the two. Where Hanako was brazen her younger sister was timid. Where Hanako was aggressive, this one was passive. Fred just realized he didn't know the younger sister's name. "Excuse me for not catching it sooner, what's your name?"

"Oh me," she gasped, totally startled to realize that proper introductions had never been made. "I'm Sakura."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Aki nodded. "I'll be sure to tell Hanako that we met and you appear to be doing well."

"Don't tell me you're like that too-tall rabbit abomination!" Kado yelled in disgust.

"I'll admit that Hanako's annoying, but abomination's a bit strong," Aki puzzled. "And how exactly are you comparing me to Hanako? That I'm too tall? I'll agree I am too tall to be a rabbit youkai, but I assure you I am rather short for a human."

The old squirrel sputtered in disgusted outrage. "What my demented feather duster colleague was trying to ask was if you shared the banished bunny's taste in pairings of a more adult nature," Yuuji translated with some small amusement.

"That – that thing! She's so terribly perverse to go against what nature intended! That freak of nature!" Kado managed to snarl.

Aki's eyes flashed, but she reeled in whatever emotion it was. "Nature itself goes against nature. One would think that in your long life you would've come to realize that it takes all kinds to make a world. And pardon me if I refuse to find your opinion anything but unworthy of my consideration," She barely refrained from growling the words. "As to the question you didn't exactly ask, I am not like Hanako in her choice of romantic partners. This is, of course, totally irrelevant and none of your business. Currently I refuse to form any kind of attachment, Romantic, platonic or anything else."

"Aki," Fred said softly.

"Shut up, Fred," she sighed and turned to the unoccupied forest beyond the crowd.

Sakura shot a lethal glare at the old squirrel before skipping forward to lay a gentle hand on one of Aki's shoulders in an attempt to soothe her. Instead, Aki tensed and stood up.

"If you've decided what to do about the shards, I'll be leaving," Aki spoke evenly.

"Right," Yama-sama said carefully. "The shards go with her. Collect them for her."

Aki fished out a clear empty film container and tossed it to Kashi. "Put them in that, please." The little chipmunk hurriedly packed them into the plastic cylinder and tossed it back to the human.

Aki's brow creased in slight confusion. "You missed one," she commented and carefully stepped over to the rock. Bending over as the little youkai scurried away from her, she brushed her hand through the tufts of grass around the base of the stone.

Aki's eyes widened as a sharp pain raced through her body unexpectedly. She tensed her body to keep from falling and sucked in her breath unevenly. The shard was gone and the painful tingle of its disappearance burned through her body as she stood up. "Got it," she managed to say without any hint of the agony she was feeling.

Anyone in the area that might have noticed and commented on her strange behavior was instantly distracted by the sudden approach and quick departure of a rather large ball of light. "What was that?" Fred asked the seemingly obvious question.

"Something big, bad, and bleeding," Kashi answered, every hair on her body standing on end. Every youkai in attendance was in a similar frozen, wary state, even the big bear – which was a pretty good indication that big and bad would be better said 'Monstrous and terrifying'.

Aki gazed after it in curiosity. It was going the same direction she was headed. It might be interesting to see just what that big ball of light was… "I'll take my leave of you," she said softly as she turned to go.

"Don't go!" Sakura cried, her fright still sending tremors down her body. "I'm sorry what Kado said upset you, he was wrong to say it, but you shouldn't be out there alone while that," she swallowed with difficulty. "While _that_ runs in the forest."

"I thank you for your concern and that apology should not be coming from you, but I said I would go and I will," Aki smiled softly at the little rabbit youkai. "Nothing big, bad and ugly is going to stop me," she finished looking pointedly at Fred.

"I am not ugly!" the ghost howled in mock hurt as he followed after her departing figure.

"Have you ever seen yourself in the morning?" she played for the audience that could still hear them. Aki most certainly didn't feel playful, she was still in pain and terribly curious as to what that light was.

"Everybody looks horrible in the morning!" Fred declared, acting his heart out. He knew Aki well enough to know something was up.

"Yes, but normally after attempts at grooming they look improved, you never do!" she returned, not entirely sure if they were out of hearing range yet.

"Wait!" a screechy voice called after them.

"That last was a bit much," Fred mumbled under his breath.

"Yes, but you can't help your bad hair cut," Aki finished the argument while Fred sputtered. "What is it?" she asked the ridiculously puffed bird that perched above her breathing heavily.

"Elder," the bird gasped. "Torafu-zuku. Warn you. About to rain. Soon."

Aki blinked then smiled at the little helpful bird. She thanked him and continued on her way, her pace wholly unchanged. She was determined to put some distance between her and the forest dwelling community. She was finding that learning their names wasn't such a good thing.

"What's the matter?" Fred asked her quietly.

"I stayed too long," she answered equally as quiet, the note of subtle upset barely discernable, but he knew it was there.

"That's not a bad thing," he tried to argue.

"Yes, it is," she disagreed. "I was almost sucked into caring about what they did, what they thought. I…" her eyes narrowed, hiding the ever present sorrow. She'd gotten so good at hiding it; Fred almost couldn't see it there.

Whether his eyes could detect it or not, he knew it was there. He couldn't in all seriousness continue refuting the cause of his own death and its links to her crippling sadness. And he couldn't even pretend to when her fear of a reoccurrence of those terrible events bubbled to the surface. Fred whispered her name softly.

It was these moments of her profound pain that left him wishing he could still touch her. There was only so much comfort that could be derived from just a familiar voice.

Aki continued to move, resolutely pushing her worries to the back of her mind. She always did think too much and it often served to make her terribly morose, only now it was a great deal worse.

"What happened when you went for that last shard?" Fred asked to change the subject.

"I'm not sure," Aki answered distractedly, "I brushed against it and pain shot through me and it disappeared. I mean it's here, with me, but not," she shrugged.

"Well, that's weird," Fred commented and Aki snorted.

"What in that past week or so hasn't been weird?" she asked tempted to laugh. "Think about it: time travel through well, learn demons are real, have lesbian youkai form firm attachment to me, find out shards of glass can be the source of undefeatable evil and now they seem to really like me in a way that is most painful."

"Good point," Fred nodded. "So now all we need to do is stumble across 'big, bad, and bleeding' to round out the day."

"I love it when we're of one mind about things," Aki smiled sardonically.

"I was being sarcastic!" he whined, definitely not wanting to find the source of an entire youkai community's fear.

"Too bad," Aki teased blandly. "Because I think 'big, bad and ugly' is just up ahead. He's certainly making enough noise."

"What makes you so sure it's a he? And nobody said it was ugly," Fred bantered, no need for him to be quiet. Self-preservation flies right out the window when you're dead.

"It doesn't have to be a he, but I don't know of too many things that can pull off looking pretty while bleeding enough for the pool of blood to extend this far," she returned.

It was quite a formidable amount of blood. AS they came in sight of the wounded youkai, they both had to eat their words. It was both male and quite amazingly gorgeous looking despite being short a limb and thrashing feverishly on the ground.

"Oh my," Aki's eyes widened as she stared at the messy demon before her.

The injured youkai snarled at her and the ghost, though most of it was directed at Fred.

Of course, Aki was undeterred. She continued walking towards the male, determined to get the bleeding stopped while it would do some good.

The injured youkai kept up his vocal warning non-stop though it was still directed at Fred. In a corner of Aki's mind, she wondered at that, but it was a very dark and neglected corner. The youkai's wary glare didn't change focus until she was almost touching him.

"Back. Useless Human." The snarl had resolved itself into slightly guttural words.

"There we go again," Aki huffed as she studied the growling creature, "Generalizing based on species. I'm really getting kind of annoyed with the narrow mindedness of these people."

"I don't know how you can keep your 'I'm always lukewarm' attitude around that guy," Fred commented. "If he were in anyway female I would so be hitting on him right now."

Aki blinked, "I'll admit he's good-looking, but then so are flowers. I don't date flowers because that's all they've got going for them. Same goes for people. I won't go for someone just 'cause he's pretty."

The next thing Aki knew she was being pressed into the ground with the bleeding male above her.

"I don't think he liked you comparing him to flowers, especially not in a way that indicated you wouldn't even consider him a male fit for your attention," Fred said like he was commenting on the weather.

"Well he didn't have to bleed on me to let me know that!" Aki grumbled moodily, attempting to shove the youkai off and failing miserably.

Fred came closer to laugh in her face and the youkai growled at him ferally. "Look bud, I'm dead. You can't hurt me and I can't hurt you," he reasoned with the slightly delirious male.

"I don't think he likes you," Aki suggested from the ground as she continued trying to wriggle her way to freedom.

"You might be right," the ghost agreed.

"Perhaps you should get lost for a while," she told him.

"Right," he nodded and faded out of sight.

"Now are you going to let me up so I can help you or are you going to suffocate me for not instantly falling in love with you?" she asked rhetorically as she pushed against his shoulder.

The youkai rose up a few inches and Aki slid out from under him. "Now lets see what's happened to you," she calmly leaned to check the source of the blood. The flow didn't seem to be slowing any and the mess it caused had certainly spread. "How long will it take for you to stop it on your own? A long time? A few breaths?"

"A long time." He spoke in concise broken sentences as if the ability for more complex speech was gone, probably to the blood loss.

"Want me to try to stop it?"

"How?"

She was getting really tired of this medieval paranoia. "Well, either stitching or just bandaging," she answered. Her own sentences becoming somewhat choppy in response to his.

"No stitches."

Aki sighed. Well this was going to be interesting. She cleaned the stub and sterilized it with supplies from her miraculously unsoiled shoulder bag. Then she wrapped the wound tightly in gauze before looking the demon over once again. "Want me to clean your clothes?"

"Clean themselves."

Aki sighed before getting up and starting to walk away. "Well, my clothes don't. I'm going to get cleaned up and set up camp before it rains. I'm thinking somewhere not covered in blood," she thought out loud.

"No," the youkai latched onto her arm, digging in slightly with his claws.

"Yes," she pried his hand off her arm and started to walk away.

His eyes flashed red and she could see his muscles bunch for some quick movement. A movement that never came. Right before he would have lunged to catch her he collapsed, unconscious from the blood loss.

Aki sighed. Now she'd have to watch over him 'til he woke up. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. Still, she had to wonder just why this youkai had been more offended by her dismissing him over her approaching him. And why was he so determined for her to stay? She sighed again, the answers were probably some of those impossible to find kind.

Ah well, time to make camp and get the blood off. Oh and mustn't forget to drag the demon to the clean camp. If that wasn't going to be an impossible undertaking…

Her life just sucked; time to get on with it.


	9. Grumpier Old Dog Demons

La, the story continues with no reviews in sight. Frankly it's a bit disquieting to have such a quiet audience. But seriously, if you like it so much it robs you of speech, I'll not argue with it.

Enter Sesshoumaru having a bad day! It's soo wonderful to fluff his fur sometimes.

Inuyasha and cast are totally subject to my whims, whatever they might be, because Rumiko Takahashi hired me to babysit the lot of them until further notice. In other words, They're my test subjects for variuos experiments and whatnot. It's good to be delusional.

**Grumpier Old Dog Demons**

Slowly the darkness of the world began to lighten and the maimed dog demon's vision began to clear. It took him a minute or two before he managed to make sense of what exactly he saw. After all, it isn't everyday Sesshoumaru could look up to see the rain falling straight down at him without it actually striking his face.

If he was given to expressing anything like confusion, he might have raised his eyebrows and creased his forehead to display it, but since we're talking about _the_ Ice Prince of the West, that didn't happen. Not that he was given the chance. A rather soothing and feminine voice interrupted his inner thought processes concerning the matter.

"So you've rejoined the land of the living, hmm?" the demon lord glanced over to view the speaker and hissed in pain. "Don't move around so much," the voice warned rather dispassionately, "You aren't quite ready for that much stress." A rather exotic looking human female crept into his view. "After all, you did just lose a lot of blood," she smiled ironically down at him.

Sesshoumaru glared at her. He most certainly was not happy with his situation. Somehow he had fallen into the mercy of some filthy woman of negotiable virtue, judging by her strange garments, and was too weak to violently protest the event.

"Are you hungry? Thirsty?" she asked him softly. "I can get you something if you'd like." His response was yet another icy glare. "No? Humph! I suppose not," her eyes shone briefly with some thought that amused her. "How 'bout moving? You want me to help you sit up? After all it can't be entirely too interesting staring at the rain through the canvas huh?" she smiled at him.

He blinked at the question. Would he prefer to be sitting up? Well, yes of course. He couldn't exactly see much in his current position. How was he supposed to defend himself from such an awkward angle? Sesshoumaru caught her eyes and nodded precisely. Yes sitting up would be more appreciable.

Aki moved to aid the much larger male with his request, if request it could be called. He hadn't exactly said anything. She mentally shrugged. With her brief experience with youkai thus far, she'd come to understand that most demons were exceedingly proud and arrogant. It was just their way. A bit of a defense mechanism she suspected.

Sesshoumaru hadn't realized just how straining simply sitting up could be. He'd nearly snapped his teeth at her when she moved to help him. That was before he'd tried to move to do so. How did he become so weak? Was it permanent?

"You've lost quite a lot of blood you know," Aki told him quietly without inflection. "It's normal to experience weakness afterwards, but it is temporary." She smiled slightly, no more than a slight upturning at the corner of her mouth. It was quite likely this particular demon was normally very difficult to read, at least from his facial expressions considering what she'd caught so far. Ice, and more ice.

Really, if somebody were going to choose one permanent expression to wear for the rest of their life, bored was not the one she would've chosen. It tends to be taken as an insult way too often. Insults are detrimental to the negotiating tables, and judging by the clothes of her patient, he was probably important enough to have to endure that incredibly boring occupation often. In such situations, attentively interested expressions are much more beneficial.

But even with that frigid look on his face, she could read him. The subtle quick release of his breath told her he was relieved. Aki suspected that if the silver haired demon hadn't been so wounded at this moment, even his breathing would be firmly under control at all times. If anything, the guy struck her as a megalomaniac.

Upon achieving a semi upright state, Sesshoumaru took swift inventory of his surroundings. A few feet away from him was a merry fire blazing under a strange pan filled with water. Beyond that, he was surrounded by a small break in the trees to which the "canvas" that hung blocking out the rain was tied. No one else was in the area besides himself and the strange girl. The human gently propped him up with her strange bag so he could reserve his strength for more important things.

She stepped back and straightened up with a small smile, granting him his first full view of his temporary caretaker. Her hair was long and brown, not the dark brown that was common among the humans he was used to seeing, but a light brown that was closer to the colour of sun-bleached wood used to build the huts of villages. Her eyes were not dark brown like the others he'd come across, but a strange shifting colour that was both green and brown, though it settled more towards green. She was short, but then all humans were short compared to himself. Her clothes were the most obvious statement of "other" about her. He might have been about to assign her to the category of very effeminate man if he hadn't just felt evidence to the contrary when she helped him to sit up.

Then there was the evidence from his other senses to consider. He could not catch her scent. She had been pressed right up against his skin in places and still he could not catch her scent. Sesshoumaru knew his nose was working; he could smell the forest beyond her, the fire beside her, but not her. It was disconcerting, but not all that had to be considered.

His instincts begged for caution, but he couldn't quite figure out why. The feeling was very specific when it was other youkai. And warning bells would be sounding in his head if there were miko nearby, but that wasn't what he felt when he looked at her. Yet more confusion plagued him.

He most assuredly didn't like this situation at all.

Aki observed him shamelessly as he studied her. She wondered what conclusions he would make, then shook her head knowing it didn't matter. The water over the fire began to boil, finally.

The former English tutor moved to make herself some hot chocolate. No point in starting a staring contest with a demon that was too proud to blink if something were to fly in his eye. Aki's smile flourished into a grin, now that was something to laugh about.

The demon lord started out of his ruminations when the strange human moved to the fire. "What are you doing?" he demanded in a croaking facsimile of his usual voice and frowned. That certainly didn't come out quite like he wanted.

Aki smiled at Sesshoumaru's frustration, "I'm simply fixing myself something warm to drink. I'm not too sure if you'd like it though," it was her turn to frown thoughtfully. "I don't carry tea with me as I personally don't like it. You're welcome to share this though."

Sesshoumaru was wary of accepting yet more help from such a lowly creature. What could possibly be the motivation behind such an offer? In his experience, humans did not offer aid to youkai without demanding some form of reciprocity. "Why?" Sesshoumaru was a taiyoukai of few words. She should be glad he had graced with just the few he had spoken thus far.

"Why what? There are a great many things that particular question could be asked for. Why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly? Why does the sun rise and set? I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific in order to receive the answer you're looking for." She purposely left her voice empty of the playfulness that would've normally filled that kind of speech. Instinctively she knew he would not respond well to that.

Sesshoumaru was quite taken aback. Not only did this little human not answer the question, she mocked it matter-of-factually. How dare she not show him the proper respect! If he weren't currently so weak, she would most definitely be very dead at this moment. Then again…

She did have a point. There were quite a great many different things he could be asking about. Why was she helping him? Why was she sharing her supplies? Why was she sheltering him? Why couldn't he catch her scent? Why was she so strange, both in appearance and demeanor? Why could she smile at him and keep all emotional overtones out of her voice? Sure he could do it, Sesshoumaru had spent many years perfecting the skills required to maintain his façade of uncaring indifference. But she looked much too young to have spent the time required to do so, and she was human.

In Sesshoumaru's experience, humans seldom bothered to cover their feelings. If nothing else, it appeared as if most humans simply allowed their emotions to rule them. It was their greatest weakness, but only one of many.

"So did you want some?"

Sesshoumaru reigned in his wandering mind. He had forgotten the offer of refreshment, but it was obvious she had not. He stared at her openly as she continued with her task and looked at him blankly. Her face was just as empty as any porcelain doll, pleasant to look upon but empty of life. The dog demon glanced down at the beverage in her hand. It had an intriguing smell. Richly sweet with a touch of silken darkness, his mouth watered slightly and he realized just how thirsty he was.

"You know, the fastest way to replace the blood you lost is to drink lots of fluids," she informed him thoughtlessly. "The majority of the body is made up of water."

He looked at her strangely; he'd never heard such nonsense. Then again, if one thought about it, it would explain why one was terribly thirsty after illnesses and injuries of great magnitude. Sesshoumaru closed his eyes and sighed quietly before nodding.

Aki smiled at him, internally dancing a happy dance. She hadn't even realized this had been a slight battle of wills until he'd closed his eyes. Really demons were way too competitive about stupid things for their own good. "Here you go," she chirped slightly, placing the crude little mug in his elegantly clawed fingers. "It's quite good, I assure you. And the warmth always feels good on a rainy day."

He looked down at the little cup in his hand as the warmth slowly seeped into his fingers. Sesshoumaru mentally groaned at the rather poor looking cup. He'd seen better-looking vessels in the homes of peasants. He sniffed in disdain, finding his senses inundated with the smell of the liquid the coarse cup held. He sampled the brown liquid, to find it quite sweet and vaguely soothing. "Girl, what is this?" he asked levelly, expecting an answer this time.

"That? That's a cup, it's used to hold liquid for drinking and such," Aki replied intentionally misinterpreting what he was asking.

Sesshoumaru growled in annoyance. Was this Human insanely stupid? Either she intentional misconstrued what he asked, which in itself is very stupid, or she truly didn't know what he meant, which again labels her to be very stupid. The first instance however, would mark her insane. No one intentionally annoyed a demon unless they had a death wish. "This beverage which you just made," he growled slowly losing his patience.

"Hmm, What about it?" she pouted quietly.

"What is it?" he growled again.

"Oh that," She smiled at him slyly, "that is what the people where I live call hot chocolate. You probably won't find much more of it any where around here."

"Are you intentionally misconstruing my questions?" the sentence left his lips before he could think to stop it.

She smiled warmly at him. "Are you intentionally rude to everybody or just the people that help you?"

"You must know that annoying a demon is tantamount to suicide," the demon lord informed her.

"I've annoyed my fair share of demons," Aki returned gently. "I haven't died yet."

"Do you have a death wish?"

"Are you gonna finish that?" she asked ignoring his question.

"Will you stop answering every question I ask with a question?" Sesshoumaru growled, quite annoyed now.

"Okay"

Sesshoumaru blinked. "Just like that?"

"Yep."

The dog demon mentally shook his head and stared at her, "What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Nobody wants nothing," Sesshoumaru stated sharply. "What are you after?"

"Frankly, there is nothing you have, could have, ever will have or could do that I want." Aki smiled at his incredulous frown. "I want nothing from you. Not repayment for helping you, not protection from some crazy enemy or other, and not help for some quest I am on. There is nothing you could give me or that I could take. You have nothing of that nature to worry about."

He blinked at her, momentarily stunned. Then he got angry. "You obviously know not who you speak to wench…"

"I don't care who you are. I'm sure you're some demon lord used to people and demons attempting to use you for their own gain." Aki smiled sympathetically at him, "there is nothing in this world I wish to gain."

"That's it? I don't believe you."

"I didn't expect you to. You will believe what ever you want to believe no matter what I say so don't worry about it," Aki paused. "Your drink is getting cold."

Sesshoumaru looked down at his cup. She was right, the cup was beginning to lose some of its delicious warmth. He quickly drank half of it before leaning back and brooding into his cup.

Brooding is not a pleasant activity. It's dreadfully dull and only those of a particular nature can stand to do it for an extended period of time. Sesshoumaru did not happen to be one of these lucky few, though under normal circumstances you would not find him considering those who brood a lot 'lucky'. But then, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't be stuck with a strange human woman for company, wounded and facing an incredibly horribly made cup. A cup, which was the only disconnected thing, he had to stare at.

Under closer scrutiny, he was able to make out some strange sloppily made designs amateur-ly inscribed on the side of the cup. He found himself slightly wondering about the cup. Who made it? What did the designs mean? In fact, since there was nothing else he could do at the moment, he found himself utterly fascinated by these unanswered questions.

Aki noticed his pointed scrutiny of her cup. She wondered if he even knew how the little thing was made. She shrugged dispassionately, not that it mattered. "Do you like my cup?" she asked out of the blue.

"It is very poorly made," the dog demon stated shortly.

"Of course it is," she smiled at him, "my little brother made it for me."

"Well then he is a very poor craftsmen."

Her smile grew, "He was eight when he made it." The demon lord blinked. Did craftsmen begin apprenticeships that young? "And he wasn't a craftsmen, he was just a little boy that loved his big sister very much."

Her voice held warmth for the first time since he'd awaken to her. Sesshoumaru marveled slightly at the way it spread through the little dry area protected by the 'canvas'. "You speak of him as if he is no more."

"He isn't."

"What? Did he decide he didn't like you anymore?"

Aki smiled at him softly, "You will find, that while I will not answer your questions with questions as you requested, there are some requests I will not fulfill and some inquiries I will not answer."

The demon lord growled angrily. He had something scathing to say on the tip of his tongue when his senses warned him of danger and his whole body tensed in readiness.

Aki whirled around placing her back to the demon lord. There was something here. She slowly bent to pick up the iron skillet, wincing as the hot metal came in contact with her skin. Something was here that threatened her youkai guest. No one was going to undo her work while she was still standing.

She closed her eyes trying to sense the threat with her ears instead of her slightly blurry vision. One second stretched into many as she waited for some sign of where her opponent lay in wait.

There. The grass rustled with movement that had nothing to do with rainfall. Deftly she flung the hot water out of the pan in that general direction, allowing for as wide a spray as possible. Their attacker screamed in pain and shock, not exactly expecting to be hit with scalding hot water in the middle of the rain.

Aki then stepped up to the now very obvious demon and swung at its head with the pan, which gave a resounding ring on contact. The former English tutor stepped up to the demon and whipped out a pair of handy chopsticks to pluck the Shikon shard from the forehead of the dirty little thing. The demon began to shrink as she placed her newest shard in the plastic film canister that had been selected to hold shards and kept tucked in her jeans pocket. Giving the now smaller grass lizard demon a quick once over, she picked up its skinny little body, tossed it lightly in the air and hit it full force with the skillet. She stood there watching the demon fly like a baseball into the forest.

Aki sighed. Really just how many demons was she going to run into today? She sharply shook some of the water from her hair before stepping back under the canvas of the tarp she'd strung up. She returned the pan to its place by the fire and stuck her reddened hands under one of the larger runoff streams coming from the top of the canvas. Oh, were those ever going to hurt for a while!

Sesshoumaru watched her with veiled interest. He was slightly impressed with the efficient way she had dealt with the problem, though he didn't exactly agree with everything she'd chosen to do. He wouldn't have left the lizard alive. Then again, he probably wouldn't have thought to use the hot water and pan as weapons. That was truly a unique choice.

He was slightly disturbed by the acrid smell of slightly cooked flesh. It wasn't the smell so much as the lack of personal scent usually laced with such a smell. That and it somewhat bothered him she had incurred the injuries defending him.

"Why?" he asked again. Aki just gave him a look, not bothering to go into the whole thing again. Sesshoumaru had to choke back a slight tugging at the corners of his mouth upon catching her expression. Really, had he not learned that lesson before? "Why did you not kill him?" the dog demon clarified slightly.

"There was no reason to. If he were after you, I would've given you the option, but his having a shard meant he was after my shards and myself. It is not my way."

"You are a weak fool. He will come back after you."

"Probably. A fool, I may be, but I am not weak because I chose not to kill him. Death is the easy way out." Aki thought for a moment, "If it were you, you would've killed him?"

Sesshoumaru stared at her, "Of course, without hesitation."

"You would've killed him to keep him from becoming a recurring problem?" At Sesshoumaru's nod she continued, "That doesn't necessarily make you strong. In order to stop someone from becoming your problem you kill the problem. That's the same reason people commit suicide. Death negates a problem before it occurs; it ends the pain before it can grow stronger. Death is easy. Life is hard. Living is difficult as every new day that you live brings new trials and tribulations to overcome. Allowing your enemies to live opens that door for them to come back and be a bigger problem later, but every time they come back and you fight them, you become that much stronger. Allowing them to live also opens that door that you and them may possibly overcome your differences and become allies and friends."

"What if they kill you? What then?"

Aki smiled. "Then I suppose I am weak. If I could not survive the trials sent at me, then I was not as strong as I could be. True, it takes a certain kind of courage to kill a person, but it isn't the kind of courage best found in leaders."

Sesshoumaru found he couldn't argue her strange logic. The concept of allowing your opponent to survive in order to become stronger seemed rather round about and fool hardy. It was to be expected that a female concocted it. "Inspired choice of weaponry." He commented dryly.

Aki snorted, "You use what's available. And know well your limitations. My vision isn't the best, but the water would spread out to hit a large enough area to negate that. No matter how thick the skull of most youkai, I've found most of them become temporarily stunned with a blow from my pan."

"Then you've lost one of your weapons," Sesshoumaru noted the empty pan.

Aki smiled, "Ah, but I already have a replacement ready for use."

The dog demon raised an eyebrow at her. "And what pray tell, is it?" he inquired.

"Oh c'mon, I'm sure you can figure it out if you really think about it. Here's a hint it isn't more water," she winked at him. She had the audacity to wink at him. How _dare_ she patronize him!

"Why don't you just tell me?" he growled irritably.

Aki pouted back at him, "You're not even gonna try? Now that's a big let down. It would've been a fun game. Oh, well. I guess it's back to the puzzle book for me." She sat down next to the fire and picked up a strange stick like thing and a pad of coarse paper.

He watched her slightly enraged at her staunch refusal to give him the answer. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

She looked up at him slowly, "Hmmm? OH this? It's a puzzle book. It contains a lot of little puzzles and problems that have to do with words and logic. The purpose of them is to develop good problem solving skills, or in my case to pass time not thinking about things I'd rather not think of," she finished dryly. "I'd offer to let you try to do some, but they're not written in Japanese."

"Nonsense, no human wandering wench knows how to write or solve problems."

"This human wandering wench knows how to write in at least three different languages. I've just about finished all these puzzle/problems. So your supposition is slightly incorrect. I also happen to know a lot more than that, but it doesn't really matter at this point as I highly doubt you're quite willing to swallow what I just told you." Again silence convened over the two.

Sesshoumaru stared sullenly out at the rain. It was incredibly strange not having his full strength. But that was only the beginning of his problems. Slowly he began to remember the events that lead him up to this situation.

His father's fang, Tessaiga, was now in the hands of his filthy half-breed half brother. And Said brother had used the fang to cut off his arm. Oh the world was most definitely against him. As if the humiliation of losing to the disgusting hanyou wasn't enough, here Sesshoumaru was spending time at the mercy of one crazy, willful, annoying human wench that didn't give a rat's ass who he was. What did he ever do to deserve such punishment?

His grip tightened on the clay cup in his hand. What's next? Was Jaken going to suddenly start singing old drinking songs again? It was bad enough the first time. Or better yet, was his little brother going to happen across him now when he was least able to defend himself? Just thinking about it made him want to cringe.

Finally all his anger and frustration that had been building up boiled over. He chucked the little clay cup at the nearest tree to be rewarded with a very satisfying breaking sound.

Aki looked up at the sound, first checking the demon lord that was her company. She noticed him staring smugly at something to the side of their little shelter so she turned to look. There smashed into tiny little pieces was the irreplaceable little mug her younger brother had given her on her birthday the year before he died.

Silently she set down her puzzle book and pen before getting up to retrieve a purple bandana from her bag behind the dog demon. Her hands shook as she walked over to the remains of her clay mug. Aki bent and painstakingly picked up all the fragments before wrapping them snugly in the purple cloth and tying off the ends. Quietly she replaced the bandana and its precious cargo inside her bag. Then she stood back up and walked away from her patient and out into the rain softly murmuring about firewood.

Sesshoumaru watched her every move. From the moment she approached him to get into the bag behind him to the very last view of her as she faded into the rain. It was actually at that first minute he regretted smashing what wasn't his. A regret that deepened when he failed to miss her shaking hands as she picked up the pieces.

Sesshoumaru wasn't heartless. Neither was he cold, he just hid what he felt for various reasons tactical and otherwise. At this minute, he found himself wishing he were. And all over a strange human that knew no fear.

He took a deep breath when she disappeared into the soggy trees. Her silent handling of the destruction of her cup rattled his nerves. He'd much rather she'd yelled, cried, anything but that quiet despair he saw in her eyes. The yelling would have left his ears aching, the crying would have left his nose burning, but this – this nothing seemed so very unnatural it left all his senses on alert and waiting for whatever he'd expected her to do in retaliation.

Sesshoumaru took another deep breath and caught the faint smell of blood that wasn't his own. It must be hers, he deduced. It didn't have the overlying personal tones blood normally had. He glanced back at the bag she had just messed with. There was a red stain on the flap of it. It was still wet. Again she had been injured because of him but not by him, this time for no reason.

It was a good while before she returned and the scent of blood was refreshed, as solid a confirmation of his suspicion as the stain on the bag behind him. "You've cut yourself. It needs to be cared for." Sesshoumaru told the woman, still working under the assumption that humans are inherently stupid.

Aki blinked in some modicum of surprised. The scratch was small and barely worth the effort to glance at, besides why should it matter to him if she cut herself? "That's nothing, you should see the stitches in my arm. Or the healing scar around my ankle," she boasted smugly.

"I was not at fault for any of those," he dismissed their relevance, though he was slightly curious as to what this girl did that she would brush aside any wound that wasn't life threatening.

"And you're not responsible for this one either."

"Woman, do not try to deny what I know is fact," it was then he realized he didn't know her name. More than that he realized he wanted to know it. "Girl, what is your name?"

Aki smiled at him kindly, "What does it matter? After you heal, neither of us is likely to see one another again."

"I would know to whom I speak."

"Ah but we often speak to people we don't know by name."

"I would know in whose debt I am."

"And I refuse any attempt at repayment."

"You're not going to tell me your name are you?"

"Nah."

"Why not?" Sesshoumaru sighed.

The enigmatic human smiled at him, "Because then you would attempt to track me down after all this is done for good or ill. Should anyone ever discover you were helped by a useless," she rolled her eyes, "and weak human, you would destroy me so I could not corroborate the story. This way I don't know who you are, you don't know who I am. It offers protection both ways."

"Did anyone ever tell you, you are extremely annoying?" the dog demon grumbled.

"Yes," Aki responded cheerfully. "But then isn't everyone to some degree?"

Sesshoumaru had to admit, she was right.


	10. Foxy Mudwrangling

Um, woops! This was supposed to go up last Thursday!

Ah well, You're not dead yet soitcan go up today instead. It's just a small chance to give Sesshoumaru a hard time again. AS the title suggests, there is mud and a kitsune (fox) in this chapter. Hmm, I wonder who it could be? Anyways, there is one more chapter to this part before i start up the next part. Are you keeping up with where these chapters fit in so far? ARe the characters incredibly OOC? Do you think I've fallen over the deep end of reality? Tell me! Since I'm not really sure if the review stuff even works anymore or if you're all just lazy I figure I'll be nice and give you two ways to really lay into me for updating late.

The first is of course by e-mail. I have a hotmail account under the name haruchan23. And then there's my AIM name TerraLeeRose. I'm always on-line and people have been known to keep me on their buddy list just to read my away messages. I have many and most are extremely unique. So if you're the vengeful type or the extremely, born-with-a-red-pen-in-my-hand type, you know how to reach me.

And finally, Whatever character you don't recognize is mine. rumiko Takahashi can't take credit for them, though she may wish she could. The rest... well, i'm sure you know by now who it belongs to, she's just taking a break so I thought I'd seize the oppurtunity and take over.

**Foxy Mud Wrangling**

There's a time, in the wee hours of the morning, between midnight (middle of the night) and dawn in which revelations are born. Usually their birth is preceded by a great deal of contemplation and restless attempts to sleep. After all, who wants to be stuck with a never-ending case of insomnia? In Sesshoumaru's Case, it didn't require all that.

Sesshoumaru's revelation, if revelation it can be called, came because of his inherent need to perpetuate the order in his universe and Aki's blatant disregard for it.

Just shortly before dawn Aki dozed off. Her puzzle book had long since been finished and before she'd carefully thrown the pages into the flames; Sesshoumaru had glimpsed the neat handwriting on every page. So she had been speaking the truth he mused to himself, all the while studying her slumbering features.

His view floated down to scrutinize her clothing. The upper garment that covered her torso was an odd thing that covered much of her skin with its long sleeves. At least it did when one of the sleeves wasn't rolled up and fastened there in some way. He glared at it. Clothing should have _some_ amount of symmetry and her garment had until she secured _just the one_ sleeve in a position above her elbow.

It was bugging the hell out of him. So Sesshoumaru expended the energy to move over to the girl. He mentally sighed as he realized he could not undo the sleeve with one hand. Instead he had to scrunch (how he hated to scrunch!) the other sleeve up her arm. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

Sesshoumaru was just getting used to the idea of only having the one arm and Aki's arm just would not oblige him and stay still. Before he could get too frustrated though, he caught a glimpse of four wounds on her pale skin that seemed vaguely familiar.

Some half remembered image flashed in his mind as he slid his clawed fingers over the marks. Claw marks. They were his claw marks, but the wounds were strange. He had inflicted pain but just barely any. The wounds had been inflicted with just enough of his toxins to be certain they scarred the human but not enough to leave her in agony.

He mentally frowned as more images from the night before flew through his mind, his thumb still absently rubbing her arm.

Aki opened her eyes and raised an eyebrow at the youkai's strange behavior. Then she noticed his thumb rubbing over the claw marks on her arm. She'd intended to keep them hidden. The arrogant youkai hadn't seemed to remember anything about what happened before he woke up so she was just going to forget it. But now, it certainly seemed like he remembered some of it. "Do you always react to ghosts that way, or was my friend just special?"

Sesshoumaru blinked. She'd caught him entirely off guard with the question. He'd thought she was asleep. And if anything, she should question his reactions to her, not the ghost. "I cannot explain my reactions when I was not myself," he answered carefully.

"But you remember them," Aki commented.

"Some."

Aki's eye was itching to start ticking. He still hadn't stopped caressing the wounds on her arm and the skin was warming to the friction it caused. "What do you remember?"

"What I remember is very disconcerting. My reaction to the ghost you allude to makes more sense than my reaction to you. With you I acted like – like," his stomach turned at what it seemed like.

"Like you wanted to see just how deep you could sink under my skin," she offered, unblushingly.

The minute widening of his eyes was as close to wincing at her indelicacy as he would ever come. Still, Sesshoumaru continued on with his oral examination of his behavior without missing a beat. "In the situation as it was, you should have been dead. I should have, at the very least, threatened the both of you rather than warning you."

Aki shrugged, "Who cares what you think should've happened, it didn't." She stood up in the predawn light and kicked some wet dirt over what was left of the fire. Efficiently she tore down her makeshift camp, tarp and all. The former English tutor took a deep breath of the damp air and sighed as she continued to pack up while the youkai just stayed where he was curiously watching her. Brief mumbled comments of "So that's where that went," punctuated her movements.

"What are you doing?" Sesshoumaru's curiosity escaped through his lips. Seriously, what was up with his lack of control over that?

"Well, I'm awake and I've got to get a move on. As much as I've enjoyed your company," she rolled her eyes discreetly, "I don't have anything I wouldn't mind you smashing to bits. You appear to have regained enough strength to survive well enough on your own, so there's no reason for me to stay. Your nightmare is over," she snorted.

"You haven't been dismissed yet. This Se-," Sesshoumaru was forced to choke on his own illustrious name as she cut him off.

"Shh," she assumed a pose of intense listening and awareness with her hand up as if to stop his speech with it. "Do you hear it?"

He narrowed his eyes, how could this human possibly have heard something before he did. And yet he didn't hear anything. "To what do you refer?"

Aki looked him in the eyes, her face serious, "the day is breaking." And in the stunned wake of that statement she took off while Sesshoumaru fought to get over the wrongness of the terrible pun. It was Aki's semi-derisive laughter that spurred him into action.

With a roar of no little outrage, Sesshoumaru followed after the quickly disappearing girl.

Sometime around mid-morning, a slightly muddy Aki smiled innocently up at her friend as he finally caught up with her.

"The day is breaking?" Fred asked incredulously. "Tell me you didn't actually say to the violent, feral youkai that you could hear the day breaking. Please tell me you didn't do something so insanely likely to get you killed." She just nodded up at him with a cheeky grin on her face. "Why don't you just have 'fast food' tattooed to your forehead while you're at it? Do you have any idea how dangerous that could've been? Only I'm allowed to do bad puns like that!"

Aki snorted and rolled her eyes, "I had to do something, Fred. The guy was going to lunge at me like he attempted to last night, only this time he was strong enough to pull it off. I needed to distract him."

"What? Did he want more of last night?" Fred asked flippantly. "Speaking of, just how far did the deliriously gorgeous I-wish-he-was-a-girl guy get?"

"You're sick," Aki muttered. "How far do you think he got?"

"Well, knowing you and the state he was in, not far," Fred admitted. "Maybe a kiss. Did you get a kiss out of it?"

"I'm sorry Fred," she snorted and pretended to batt her eyelashes at the ghost, "I'm still saving my first kiss for you!"

"I wish I could smack you," he said blandly in response.

Aki just smirked before whatever she would've said was cut off by a thunderous voice and a dark shadow.

"HAND OVER YOUR SHIKON SHARDS" the voice thundered.

Aki traced the shadow back to the source, a rather medium-sized ball of orange fur that was declaring at this moment "I AM THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE SHIPPOU, FEAR ME!" It was so unthreatening compared to some of the company she'd had in the last twenty-four hours, she couldn't help but burst out in uncontrollable laughter. You know the kind. The laughter that starts over something small and is sporadic due to left over nerves and then won't stop until all the stress is gone. It's the kind of uncontrollable laughter found on college campuses around the time of midterms and finals.

Poor Shippou. He was getting rather tired of people brushing him off as an inconsequential threat. It was insulting. It was degrading and he had definitely had enough. This was the last straw!

The little kitsune charged Aki and managed to knock both her and himself sliding down the muddy side of a shallow hill. Shippou's attack, however, did not achieve the desired effect. Aki didn't stop laughing except for a mild exclamatory noise upon coming in contact with the ground. It started right back up again right after and continued until the both of them were totally covered in mud.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Shippou yelled in frustration, pulling back to kick the laughing woman.

"I wouldn't if I were you," a strange voice said in his ear causing Shippou to reel back and face this new foe.

It was when he got a good view of the third party of the altercation that Shippou froze in startled fear. Ghosts were unpredictable and often times the source of much grief. His mother had told him so long ago.

Fred drolly took in the look the child gave him. Really, did the kid expect him to break out with fangs and gore or something? "To hell with it!" he muttered. "BOO!"

"Ahh!" the boy screamed in panic that cracked his voice. "Kagome!"

"What! Runt!" a gruff voice bellowed from up the hill.

"Aki-chan?" Kagome gasped as her and the dog boy came into view.

By now the older girl's mild case of hysterical laughter was slowly abating. "Kagome?" Aki blinked. "Inuyasha? Is this ball of fur yours?"

"Shippou-chan, it's alright," Kagome soothed the kitsune. "These are friends. See that one's Aki-chan," she pointed to the woman, "and that's Fred."

"You sure he's alright?" Shippou asked suspiciously.

"Wow! I guess that youkai's reaction to you last night isn't that uncommon," Aki blinked. Fred nodded somewhat flabbergasted.

"It's alright Shippou," Kagome reassured the boy. "He can't even touch you. How could he harm you?"

"If you say so Kagome," Shippou replied cheerfully.

"Feh," Inuyasha commented from the peanut gallery. "Oi! Weren't we on the trail for more shards?"

"Aki has them," Kagome answered brushing him off.

"What?"

"Right here," Aki nodded as she dug them out of her pocket.

"Wow, I didn't know people still carried these around," Kagome remarked on the film tube.

"Oh yeah," Ai replied, "They're great for holding little things like change and jewelry, but nowadays the m & m mini canisters do the same thing just as well."

"How'd you get so many?" Shards of course. They'd both been hunting for about the same amount of time, but Aki had collected far more.

"Just luck, I guess."

"Yeah that and the little buggers seem to like her," Fred teased. Aki shot him a look and sharply shook her head. He needed to learn when to shut up.

"You managed to kill all the demons that had these?" Inuyasha asked incredulously. She was turning out to be something formidably surprising.

"I haven't killed anybody for these," Aki denied. "Though that guy last night may have been asking for it."

"You keep mentioning a demon from last night, what's that about?" Kagome inquired.

"Oh it's nothing serious," Fred answered. "WE just came across this real piece of work demon last evening that had a few hundred personality issues."

"Stop that!" Aki snapped. "You're just upset that he didn't like you and didn't even try to be nice about it. You'd be a little grumpy too, if you'd just been maimed."

"Who'd been maimed?" Shippou asked.

"Just this big, bad youkai that was too pretty to be real. Too bad he wasn't female!" Fred whined.

"It wouldn't have made any difference, you're dead!" Aki grumbled.

"Yeah, but I can still flirt!"

"Oh brother," Aki rolled her eyes. "You know, come to think of it, he kind of reminded me of Inuyasha. Same hair and eyes," She shrugged.

"Sesshoumaru!" Inuyasha yelled in disbelief.

"Who?" Aki asked, slightly confused.

"Inuyasha's older full demon half brother, Sesshoumaru," Kagome informed her. "He came after Inuyasha the day you left. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha don't share any kind of fraternal love."

"Are you telling me Inuyasha's the one that cut off his arm with that new pig-sticker of his?" Aki couldn't believe it. How could anyone allow their sibling rivalry get to the point of blood shed?

"You helped that bastard!" Inuyasha couldn't believe it either.

"Yep! She did, patched him right up, annoyed the hell out of him and evaded his pursuit," Fred related proudly.

"You helped him!" Inuyasha was sometimes like a skipping record.

"Inuyasha she didn't know!" Kagome yelled over the hanyou's growling.

"And wouldn't have cared anyway!" Aki declared. "Your feud has nothing to do with me and I'll have nothing to do with it, end of story." She placed her hand on his chest to stop his advance on her person. The sleeve on that arm had been imperfectly scrunched and was now stuck that way by the drying mud, revealing the marks Sesshoumaru had placed there.

"Aki, what'd you do to your arm?" Kagome asked in concern.

"_I_ didn't do anything to it," Aki answered shortly withdrawing the arm to slide her sleeve over it. Unfortunately, Inuyasha wasn't having any of that.

"Let me see," he demanded.

"No!" Aki shook her head firmly, shoving her sleeve over both her arm (which had been revealed again by the dog boy) and consequently Inuyasha's clawed hand, which had latched onto her wrist.

"Aki-nee-san," he whined.

"No! It's none of your business!"

"Nee-san?" Shippou questioned.

"Don't ask me," Kagome shrugged. "I was there when he started that and I still don't get it."

"Did that bastard hurt you? I wanna know!" Inuyasha demanded.

"It doesn't matter if he did or didn't because it's none of your business!"

"I'm not playing. I need to check something. Did he hurt you?"

"I still say it's none of your business!"

"Aki-nee-san!"

"Inuyasha leave her alone!" Kagome yelled getting rather annoyed with the noise.

"Just let me see it!" he demanded, completely ignoring Kagome.

"No way," Aki found all kinds of ways to keep the hanyou from getting a clear view.

"Damnit wench! Stop being so difficult and let me see. It's for your own good," Inuyasha continued to pursue the elusive glimpse of her forearm.

"Oh yeah, like I'm going to do it after you both insult and patronize me. Good going braniac," Aki grumbled. "Since you asked so nicely," she flashed him the opposite forearm.

"I think I'm going to like her," Shippou gleefully told Kagome and the teenager rolled her eyes.

"Anybody that annoys Inuyasha in a nonviolent way is awesome, hmm?" Fred observed conspiratorially with a chuckle. "You'd think he would've learned by now that you can't make Aki divulge something she doesn't want to. Hell, I'm sure that demon last night understood that much."

"What do you mean?" Kagome asked, slightly intrigued.

"She wouldn't tell him her name," Fred laughed, he'd managed to catch that bit the night before in one of the few periods of awareness he'd had while being invisible.

"Sesshoumaru doesn't strike me as one to put up with that sort of thing, especially if he demanded to know it," Kagome frowned in thought. "How did she manage to pull that off?"

"She bested him in a verbal sparring match," Fred grinned.

"And she's still alive?" Kagome gasped in disbelief. The ghost merely motioned to indicate the still arguing pair.

"You damn bitch! This is serious!" Inuyasha bellowed.

Kagome's eyes darkened. Hadn't they gone over the name-calling? Aki didn't deserve that. "Inuyasha!" Kagome yelled and the hanyou tensed nervously, "Osuwari!"

"Damnit!" Inuyasha plunged into the ground.

"Don't call Aki names!" Kagome added for good measure before realizing she had essentially sat Aki as well.

"Kagome," Aki whined, "ow!"

"I'm sorry Aki!" Kagome cried.

Inuyasha used his grounded state to finally examine Aki's wound while she lay recovering from their joint descent. What he saw had him cursing the passing dust bunnies. "He marked you, that bastard!"

Everybody blinked at him.

"You sneaky jackass," Aki accused as she snatched her arm back and shoved the sleeve down to cover it.

"That bastard marked you!" Inuyasha bellowed disbelieving what his senses were telling him.

"We heard you the first time," Kagome said in a very you-don't-have-to-be-so-loud voice.

"He marked her," maybe if he said it enough times it wouldn't be so hard to understand.

"Yeah, and?" Fred encouraged the dog boy. "I don't think every body understands what you're getting at. He marked her. What like marking trees?"

Inuyasha growled, "We are not dogs! We're dog demons! Youkai!"

"Right, right! We got it," Kagome soothed the hanyou's ruffled fur. "But like Fred said, just how did he mark her? What was she marked as? What does it mean?"

Inuyasha sighed at their apparent stupidity. "There are different kinds of marks. The most common is done by scent, skin-on-skin contact. The amount of scent helps others define the type of relationship between youkai. It's the easiest to perform and the hardest to screw up because the relationship itself defines the amount of time spent together, defines the amount of contact, which controls the amount of scent transfer. These marks can fade over time."

"Really," Kagome mumbled, "that's very interesting."

"Don't interrupt!" Inuyasha huffed. "That's not the kind of mark Sesshoumaru used because it wouldn't have worked. Aki doesn't carry or give off any kind of scent," he growled wishing it wasn't so true. "The other widely used form of marking involves scarring and the different meanings are derived from the different placement and methods used to cause it. It defines to others, what your relationship is to the youkai that caused the scar. In other words, it tells other youkai just how important you are to the youkai you belong to.

"I'm not sure what others will think of it when the scent wears off completely," which it was doing at this very moment, "but I can firmly say that he marked you as his."

Aki glared, "His what? His lunch? His punching bag? His teddy bear?"

"Aki," Fred coughed as Shippou laughed, he didn't know what a te-di ba-ru was, but it sounded funny.

Inuyasha ducked, "I'm not sure, but the marks themselves suggest that you are not to be harmed and you belong to a demon strong enough to assume a humanoid form that has claws and toxins for such shallow wounds to scar."

"So I just keep 'em covered and no one'll be the wiser," Aki shrugged and looked away.

Inuyasha blinked. "Why would you want to do that?"

"No offense, but humanoid demons with claws have a tendency to scare off the smaller youkai just by the scent of them. And how many humans do you know are going to give Shikon no Kakera to a youkai scarred human, whatever the reason?" Aki explained.

Fred nodded, "It's difficult enough trying to approach the little people as a strangely dressed human and a harmless ghost."

"It wouldn't be so hard if you'd just ditch the ghost," Inuyasha muttered.

"What was that?" Fred demanded, glaring at the hanyou accusingly. "I'm not letting Aki go anywhere alone. That's one of the few things I _can_ do."

"I really wish you'd let that go," Aki sighed.

"Well I'm not going to, so what are you gonna do? Sit me?" he teased.

"Oi! Leave me out of this!" Inuyasha interjected.

"We tried that, but you keep butting in," Fred quipped.

"I hate you!" Inuyasha growled.

"Ooh look! Inuyasha's mad at me," the ghost responded in a childish voice. "Look at me, I'm shaking in my boots!" he made a big show of trembling.

Unfortunately, Shippou took it literally and blinked when he noticed what Fred was wearing. The kitsune pointed and gave Kagome a quizzical look.

"Fred," Aki began. "You weren't buried in boots."

"What? Damnit!" he gazed mournfully down at his ghostly shoes whose shine was muted by the deathly transparency all of him bore. "Tell me again, why did you let mom bury me in these shoes? I hated them in life."

"I wasn't invited to the funeral," Aki replied shortly.

"What's a fu-ne-ra-lu?" Shippou asked, stumbling over the strange term.

"It's like a wake held for someone who has died," Kagome replied. "People come to pay their last respects, give their last good byes, that sort of thing."

"Why weren't you allowed to go?" Shippou asked his new friend.

"By the time Fred died, people were afraid that whatever had killed my family and then my friends would spread to the rest of the family. So I was asked not to attend," Aki replied blankly. "Fred was the last of my friends and I hadn't been able to go to any of the other funerals due to circumstances beyond my control."

"I'm sorry Aki," Fred apologized softly.

"What for? It's not like I missed my chance to say good bye," she snorted. "You are here after all." He gave her a rueful grin.

"Just what kind of relationship did you two have that he would stay with you even after death?" Kagome asked slightly envious. "Were you lovers?"

Aki burst out laughing barely hiding the derisive note in it. "Me and Fred," she laughed, "lovers?" She looked at Fred a moment then cracked right up.

"No, I assure you, Aki and I never took that route in our relationship. We're just friends," Fred smiled.

"Besides the standard back up plan, we probably never would've either," Aki smiled indulgently. "I'm not exactly Freddy's type."

"I will not answer to that! Call me Fred if you must call me by a name that isn't mine, but Freddy isn't going to happen!" The ghost growled irately.

"He preferred dumb blonde stick-insects. I'm too smart, most assuredly not blonde and never was that disgustingly thin," she continued, happily ignoring his outburst.

"I don't know, you're certainly pulling off the stick-insect look these days," Fred pointed out sardonically.

Aki made a face at that, "I'm still too short." The ghost laughed.

"What's a stick-insect?" Shippou asked, having difficulty keeping up with the conversation with all these strange phrases and terms dropping in his way.

"It's an incredibly can't-imagine-how-they-can-remain-upright thin person, typically of the female gender," Aki explained.

"None of my girlfriends were that thin," Fred protested.

"Sure they were," Aki disagreed. "They were the kind of super thin that everyone secretly prays will die young just to prove how unhealthy it is to be that skinny."

"I did notice you never liked any of my girlfriends," Fred commented.

"I thought you could do better than Chronic Nail filer: IQ of 7 and Teaser Comb: IQ of 4," she replied evenly.

"Neither of them was that dumb, and Theresa only filed her nails when she was nervous," he defended his exes.

Aki snorted, "And she was always nervous around me?"

"Yes, you can be quite intimidating when you want to be. And you have to admit that you were really trying to make her uncomfortable," he retorted.

"I'm sorry. I just have a problem with people who's first words to me are 'Oh my god! Did you realize you were wearing last month's Vogue pumps?'"

"Point," Fred sighed in defeat. He couldn't argue with that, Theresa's obsession with fashion was one of the reasons he broke up with her.

Kagome laughed at Aki's victory. "So why did you stay with Aki if you weren't lovers?"

"Oh it was because I had to get back at her for scaring off my last girlfriend and I died before I could get satisfying revenge." Fred answered jokingly. "I needed to chop down her rather inflated opinion of herself somehow and the rest of her life seemed like just enough time to be effective."

"Well Fred, your plan has backfired," Aki told him seriously. "I now think more highly of myself for putting up with your constant presence and stupidity."

"Damn," Fred muttered, mock seriously. "Guess I'll just have to settle for barely bruising it by the time you croak." He grinned at her.

"No really, why did you stay?" Kagome really wanted to know.

"I made a promise to," Fred gave her a straight answer.

"I'm telling you promises like that expire after you're dead," Aki scolded him.

"Well, mine don't," Fred declared. "You've lost all your family and with me that last of your friends, I'm not leaving you alone. I said I wouldn't and I won't!"

Shippou walked in front of Aki and motioned her down to him. "I lost my mom and dad too," he confided in her and patted her cheek comfortingly.

"And has the monster that took them away been taken care of?" Aki asked gently.

"Yep! Inuyasha got them!" the kitsune declared cheerfully.

Aki smiled sadly, "My monsters haven't been," she told him quietly. "And they probably never will be."

"Why don't you have Inuyasha kill them?" he asked just as quietly.

"Because I don't believe Inuyasha would kill the monster that caused the death of them all," she replied.

"Why not?"

"Because the cause of it all is me," she declared bitterly before retreating from the immediate area and leaning quietly against a tree.

"And that's the worst monster known to the world," Fred declared. "There's no one half so evil or impossible to defeat as the monster that stares out at us from the inside."

"She does have it sort of right though," Inuyasha commented. "The curse is on her and has struck out at everyone she cared about. In fact, I think the curse should've taken her out and because it couldn't it tried to weaken her by hitting everything that gave her strength so that it could."

"Inuyasha," Kagome cried horrified. "That's a terrible thing to say!"

"Think about it, Kagome, look at it from her side. None of the victims of the curse had anything else in common except their relationship to her," Inuyasha argued his case. "Though I doubt the curse was placed on her specifically. It probably just fell to her from someone else. When it hit her she stood like a roadblock that couldn't be affected causing the curse to spill over into other avenues. I just wonder who it was and what the hell they did to deserve such a malicious curse."

"Maybe we'll look into that later," Fred smiled at the Hanyou.

"Don't maybe it!" Inuyasha growled. "The longer you leave it the more time it has to wear her down to nothing!"

"Don't worry about Aki," Fred smiled. "She's not going down, whatever the odds. She has the gods' own luck and a strong constitution. The earth, the seas and sky would have to work in concert to drag her down now. She promised it."

"I very much doubt she used those specific words," Kagome muttered suspiciously.

"Who cares, it still achieves basically the same thing," Fred shrugged.

"Besides," Kagome continued confidingly, "Promises can be just so many words to some people, offered to placate others but empty of meaning."

"Listen here you," Fred practically did his own growling. "A promise means something to Aki, and damn well oughta mean something to you. If anybody around her makes a promise and blows it off she just might take it into her head to do the same, and I like her breathing thank you very much!"

"Yeah wench! Without honor you're no better than the animals in the wild," Inuyasha accused.

"I never said I was like that!" Kagome yelled at the top of her formidable lungs.

"Like what?" came Aki's soft but annoyed inquiry. "What could you possibly be discussing that warrants arousing the active attention of the entirety of Japan?"

"Oh nothing in particular," Fred answered nonchalantly, the picture of youthful, albeit dead, innocence.

"You never were a good liar, Fred," Aki dismissed his statement and façade.

"Aw, what gave me away that time?" he whined.

"You mean besides the question you just asked?" she raised her eyebrow. "My personal knowledge of Kagome. I know Kagome would not have presumed to use such volume over 'nothing', it might not be over something large, but definitely not 'nothing'. Thus, knowing what I know, it automatically says it _is_ something and you're telling me falsehoods." Fred only scowled; she really was too logical sometimes.

Inuyasha 'fehed' at Fred's expression and rather horrible attempt to keep Aki from knowing the subject of their previous conversation. If it'd been him, he would've thought of something better than 'nothing'.

"Inuyasha accused Kagome of not keeping her promises," Shippou informed her, still slightly confused at the pointless lie about something so unimportant.

"Why would he do that?" Aki asked the honest little kitsune.

"Because Kagome said that some people don't think promises are more than just words," he answered.

"Did she say she was one of those people?" Shippou just shook his head and Aki raised her eyebrow at the three individuals shifting uncomfortably in front of her. "I really don't see how a simple statement of fact could lead to such a senseless accusation. Of course the whole conversation doesn't make a whole lot of sense to begin with. Just how did you get on to the subject of promises anyway?"

"They were talking about you," her informant answered.

"Oh I get it now," Aki gazed blandly on the others. "Fred told them about my promises. Kagome stated her personal observation about people and promises. Fred defended me and Inuyasha, misconstruing Fred's intent, made the accusation. It all makes sense, thought it's all very asinine."

"Wow! How'd you know all that?" Shippou asked in amazement.

"I just pieced together what little I knew of each of them and what you just told me," She answered, shrugging off his amazement.

"What's asinine mean?" the boy asked earnestly.

"It's just a fancy word for silly," Aki answered.

"What! I am not silly!" Inuyasha bellowed.

Shippou blinked, "I don't think he knew what asinine meant."

"Probably not," Aki agreed.

"He's not very smart," Shippou continued in the same vein.

"I heard that you little runt!" Inuyasha yelled and proceeded to chase Shippou around before he inevitably caught him by the tail and shook him real good. "I dare you to say that again!"

"Kagome!" the kitsune whined, alligator tears standing in his eyes. "Inuyasha's picking on me!"

"Osuwari!" Kagome yelled. "Leave Shippou alone!"

"I think we should be going," Aki stated evenly.

"Eh?" Kagome blinked, "But you shouldn't travel alone. You could join us, you know."

Aki offered the girl a shallow smile, "That would defeat the purpose. The idea was to cover more ground, more quickly."

Kagome blinked, "I guess."

"Which way were you guys headed?" Aki asked.

"Oh, Inuyasha and I had just found an old abandoned boat that was still sound. We were going to ride it down stream a bit, see what turned up, when I sensed the shards and then Shippou ran ahead and started wailing for help," Kagome explained. "I imagine we'll get back to that now. When'll we come across you again?"

"I'm not sure, but it'll definitely happen," Aki replied absently. "After all, all it takes is for one of us to come in range of the other." Kagome nodded with a half-hearted giggle. They were like radar or something. "I think I'll head upriver then," Aki informed the ninth grader. "I'll probably head back to the well in a couple days. My arm and ankle are almost back to normal and I want a hot shower and a great deal more hot chocolate."

"How's your first aid kit?" Kagome asked with a little concern.

"It's fine. Besides, you're more likely to use it with the wonder boys on your side," Aki commented dryly. "After all, I'm not fighting for the shards, you are. And if a shard requires a fight for any kind of retrieval, I locate it and tell you and the wonder boys about it."

"Sounds sensible I guess," Kagome nodded doubtfully.

"Whether it sounds it or not, that's what I'm doing," Aki stated firmly.

"Alright, alright!" Kagome put her hand up in defeat, before a thought struck her between the eyes. She should've let Inuyasha talk to Aki about this. Darn it! It was too late now though, she had already conceded defeat. Kagome shrugged it off. After all, there was always next time.

"Later Kagome," Aki started walking, "Tell the wonder boys Sayonara for me will you? They're kind of busy arguing right now." And as she disappeared from view Kagome swore she could hear her say something about a bath after the water had warmed in the sun a few more hours.

"Kagome!" a whiny voice broke her quiet amusement as she turned to sit the older 'wonder boy' real good.


	11. Unbreathing Saviors

Hurray! this part is done! What does that mean? It means that the next chapter will be under another heading. WE start to see how Aki will interact with some of the original cast members of Inuyasha. And First up is Miroku! what a treat! But first, I have to end this part and boy do things go a little crazy.

Now is the time when the Inuyasha cast thank whatever gods are out there that they are not my original characters. There are just some things I won't do to characters that aren't mine.

**Unbreathing Saviors**

Darkness is what you make of it. It can be like a blanket that wraps around you like a lover's embrace. It can be a creeping shadow that steals across the floor to nip at your extremities. It can be sinister or comforting or sweet or bitter. It all depends on how you perceive it.

And no darkness is so profound or multifaceted as the night. Most especially that darkest of nights in which the moon shuns the earth as it pays homage to its first love, the sun.

We cannot blame the moon for loving the sun more than all else. It is in the nature of planets, once-planets, and satellites to love the giver of light that they fall in with. No, we cannot blame the moon for the earth, too, loves the sun as does all her children. So we do not blame them for the love, but we bloody well do blame them for abandoning their posts to do so. Especially the moon!

"Damn bloody rock," Aki muttered as she stumbled over a hapless stone in her path.

"You should've stopped hours ago," Fred commented, condescendingly.

Yep, it was several hours after the sun had gone down and Aki had still not stopped to put up camp. This was nothing unusual really. Aki often continued her travel far into the night, her chronic semi-self-induced insomnia rendered restful sleep nearly unachievable so stopping was practically pointless. On any other night that is. Tonight, however, there was no moon to see by and Fred was convinced she was going to break her neck.

Aki didn't necessarily need to be walking in the dark; she did have a flashlight in her bag. But she figured the light would draw attention, the big, fanged, I-eat-humans kind of attention. Then again, she was making enough racket to stampede a herd of four legged animals or something, of which there was a huge abundance due to the superstitions of the time. Really, Aki couldn't imagine surviving on fish alone when there was a plethora of other kinds of meat available.

Give her Cow before Flounder, Pig over salmon, venison over trout…well maybe not the last. I mean, Bambie or lake trout? Trout, no cute movies about trout.

It was about then the ridiculous line her thoughts had crept into hit her and she snorted. One would almost suppose she was hungry or something. Well she wasn't. She never seemed to be hungry anymore. When she _did_ eat, which was rarely, it was perfunctorily and only when Fred nagged her into it for hours on end. And even then, she didn't eat much.

There just wasn't anything that appealed to her anymore. All her old favorites made her ill and she couldn't stomach half of the common Japanese dishes. Pretty much she subsisted on snack foods and every once in a great while, pocky.

Ugh, she was back to thinking about food!

"If you break your neck, I'm just going to point and laugh," Fred said dryly. She grunted but kept walking. She suspected the only reason he kept talking was to be certain she knew he was still there.

Aki snorted, all he really had to do to make her aware of his constant presence was to hover just a little bit closer. No way she'd be able to ignore that electrifying chill that screamed, "There is a dead person breathing down your neck!" Then again, she might eventually grow numb to that.

There was one thing she'd learned from spending so much time with Fred. She could never have successfully dated him. She could hardly stand him as she was half the time. She couldn't imagine just how bad this would be if she was the same as she was before the curse. Then again, Fred wouldn't be dead without the curse and he wouldn't be spending this much time with her if he was alive…

Aki chose that wonderful thought to distract her from her footing and caught her foot on a tree root and went tumbling down a low hill. The background music to her ungraceful movement was the sound of some protruding object tearing through her and her jeans. It was a sound that had her cursing even before the thump of her abrupt halt.

The thump signaled to her neck that it needed to send flaming protests at having to bend so far to her head. To which her head rang mighty thanks for having bent so far as to prevent its resembling a squashed melon. Poor Aki was caught between the two with a nasty headache and a sore neck, which she rubbed into muted pain before focusing on the knee of her jeans.

The rent in her pants had her cursing rocks, tress, hills and darkness in the most unladylike of ways. She didn't care about the abraded flesh underneath; flesh would heal, but jeans… She grumbled a few more expletives before deciding to wear them anyways with a shrug she soon regretted. Nobody on the feudal side of the well would likely care.

Of course she wouldn't be able to wear them in her neighborhood in modern Tokyo, the neighbors would probably think she was some unsavory character and call the cops on her or something. She would just have to leave a change of clothes at the Higurashi's to change in and out of.

The logistics of this little endeavor were starting to annoy her. If the people weren't so uptight about some things… Well, she really shouldn't resent it so much. She was the one who chose to live in this country and she would not upset its people simply because of annoyance.

She sighed and moved to get up.

"How dare you trespass here!" a gravelly voice accused out of the darkness.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see the signs," Aki replied. "You do have signs don't you? I mean, how am I supposed to know where not to go if there aren't any signs saying 'Do not enter' or 'Beware, territorial land owner lives her'?"

Suddenly, the area was brightly illuminated with torchlight. Aki's eyes watered in pain as the cursed darkness fought to retain its hold on her eyes. It was a painful battle across the field of her retinas, but the light inevitably won. And when it did, Aki caught her first glimpse of her accuser.

It was the ugliest, most wizened and eccentric looking woman Aki had ever seen. And that was while the old bat's buggy eyes were closed as they still were.

Aki snorted. AT least she wasn't the only one who suffered at the sudden brightness. It was a petty satisfaction, but Damnit! Why couldn't she be petty in her own head?

"I do not need signs, impudent girl," the old hag declared as two men, she thought they were men, latched onto Aki's arms in a restraining manner. "How to punish you for your trespass," the old woman hummed in thought. "I could chop you up to use in my spells, but there are so many girls available for that and none of them have been fool enough to trespass here."

Aki blinked, she'd known her fair share of witches back in the states. Wiccans weren't a bad sort, for the most part, even if they did occasionally take themselves too seriously. But her friends had nothing on this woman.

It was then the old bug-eyed woman opened her eyes and Aki could feel the intrusive power of the witch's vision rifling through her skin, tissue, and bones, even her-and she snorted at the thought-soul. "My, my, my," the hag licked her withered lips with delight, "What a delicious curse you have there?" My, but you do seem to be in the habit of angering my kind," the woman chuckled with glee. "Oh but this is a well made spell, bit too benign and well-intentioned for my taste. It seems this is what kept the curse from your life. Hmph! It should have made you more susceptible to it, it sealed your youkai blood." Aki blinked, what? "Should I break it?" the witch leaned forward to study the spell. "No too much effort, better to manipulate it, redirect its energies, but how to do it without tripping the built in defenses?" The woman paused as her eyes started to dance with gleeful inspiration. "Yes, yes, that would work," her beaked lips smiled her evil joy. "It's benign enough not to trip the defense yet annoying enough to be real punishment." She cackled and Aki shivered as much as her captors would allow. "What to do with the extra energies?"

Aki felt the old woman's gaze draw back in space to a point where it was quite painful. Her body spasmed in uncontrollable pain and she looked up at her strange empty faced guards pleadingly. "Don't bother girl, they're my dolls," the hag commented dryly before seizing Aki's face in her deceptively brittle fingers. "What's this? Shikon no tama! No, no, just a shard of it, but where there is one shard, there must be others…Too bad this one is out of reach," She pondered absently. "Ah, that's what I'll do with the extra energies."

"Alright, I've decided your punishment," the hag let go of her face slapping Aki on the cheek in the process. "I'm going to twist the purpose of this smell." She cackled with malicious delight. "I'm going to make it so that the next time a male youkai touches you, you'll go into heat. You do know that heat is, do you not? It'll have all the lesser youkai chasing after your scent to invade your lovely skin very intimately." The hag choked on her attempt at full-bellied laughter. "Unlike a natural heat though, you will not desire their continued attentions after the first coupling, but they'll be frenzied by the scent of heat. If by some chance your scent is undetectable or you manage to go without being touched the effects of the spell will escalate. And _do_ take a literal interpretation of heat, dear, as the spell will. We both know a body can only withstand so much heat before it's over for you," the hag cackled darkly. "You can sense the Shikon no Kakera, and so with what's left of the original spell's energies I will bind you to me. You will be my little hunting dog that sniffs out the jewel for me. I like it, yes, yes." The witch stared down at her evilly. "Of course in redirecting the spell its original purpose will no longer be effective and your youkai blood will be released. You've been as you are so long the sudden release of it may well drive you crazy. But then a mad dog that can sniff out the Shikon is better than no dog at all," the old hag cackled at her good fortune.

Aki stared at her dazedly. Recently her life just seemed to be going to the dogs. Dog demons, inu hanyou, and now she'd been relegated to being a dog herself. Could life get any weirder?

"Girl what is your name?" the Urasue demanded, breaking her out of her musing.

Aki snorted, "Like I'm going to give you anything while you're threatening me." She rolled her eyes at the thought.

The hag slapped her; a jagged nail caught on her skin and drew blood. "Such impertinence! No matter," the witch dismissed it. "I need not know your name to do this, I need only the name of the spells original caster, and the signature is right here clear as day. And after I'm done with you," she murmured darkly, "You'll have no use for a name other than pain."

The urasei latched onto Aki's face, digging in her nails to secure her grip. Aki would've jerked out of the witch's painful hold despite the nails driven into her skin if she could just get the leverage.

"Punishment first, binding second," the hag decreed, mostly to herself. "Wouldn't want to short it of the necessary energies, would we? The binding can be weaker in any case."

Aki felt painful holes being punched in a place where they shouldn't be punched. The flow of something else was diverted in a new direction that she just knew was going to be painful until she got used to it. Luckily the flow was still reluctant to change so the peculiar sensation she felt wasn't particularly painful yet, but that most assuredly wasn't going to last.

It was right as the old witch was finishing the punishment part of her spell alteration plan that Fred attacked.

The ghost materialized out of the shadows behind the urasue and launched his fist through the head of the guard on Aki's right. She almost rolled her eyes at the futility of the action until his fist came out the back of the clay head with a glowing ball in his grip.

The now empty clay husk began to list towards Aki and the old witch before it fell full out upon them. It broke into large heavy pieces that left a stunned Aki partially pinned flat on the ground and the urasue hopping mad.

"A ghost! Ouch! Get rid of it!" the old hag shrieked in out rage.

The remaining clay doll soul-prison lumbered about as only a clay doll soul-prison can. Consequently, it stepped on Aki a few times and smacked forcefully into the witch many times in its attempts to follow the hag's irrational orders. The last time it bumped into the witch she shoved it angrily away causing it to stumble and knock the clay pieces off of Aki.

She really didn't need Fred's prompting to run. The moment she was free she was up and running as the ghost took the remaining entrapped soul in such a way that the clay body left behind fell upon its maker.

"No!" She shouted at the sky in anger as Aki disappeared from her sight. The witch's red hot anger gave her the strength to shove her impediment aside and stand up. She glowered into the darkened forest until a thought struck her. it was a gleefully horrible and disgustingly true thought that left her almost wishing she were prone to performing happy dances. "Ah well," she cackled maniacally. "I guess the extra energy will just find its way into her punishment as well."

Aki raced away from the witch, barely noticing when she tripped over the same root again and fell. She absently got back up, hardly noticing her freshly split lip, and continued to flee.

It was all her brain was capable of comprehending. Even when she fell, she got back up as an after thought and continued to run.

Finally, her body gave out after a couple of hours, still long before dawn. She fell and failed to get back up, so she lie there breathing hard, her heart pounding in her chest like a caged animal. It was in the subdued silence that enveloped her that she began to notice the growing pain in her body that had nothing to do with falling down or being winded.

Falling down did not make the sound of rustling leaves stab into the back of her eyeballs. Breathing hard did not make the smell of damp earth try to pull her toenails out through her sinuses. And neither left her feeling like her bones were stabbing into her softer tissue and skin feeling so tight it might burst.

Oh gods the pain! She squeezed her eyes shut as the pain intensified and her breath hitched. Perhaps this is what it felt like to be born? No, then the pressure was constant but the squeezing pain was intermittent. This… this was most assuredly – and she passed out from the pain before she could finish the thought.

A silver haired figure glared down at Aki. She was trespassing on his territory. He moved closer with deadly grace and lethal intent. He would kill this stranger that dared enter his lands without permission.

He paused as he glimpsed her contorted features, easily interpreting her grimace of pain. Something about her face nagged at him but he dismissed it. If it were important he would've remembered it immediately.

The girl curled more in on herself, her body like her face, plainly communicating the strength of her inflicted discomfort.

He supposed he could be merciful and pretend she wasn't here. She did seem to be in enough pain already, too much to be able to notice anything he might do as punishment. It would be a waste of effort on his part he supposed.

Silently, he turned and left.

The next morning Fred was slightly afraid to awaken his friend. It was now just approaching dawn and he know he should wake her now rather than later. It would be easier to adjust to the light if she started while it was still dim. He knew that, he just wasn't sure how she'd take the rest of the changes. She was his friend and would always remain so no matter her species, but Aki's own body had seemingly turned on her worse than when it went through puberty. Then she'd changed height, weight, bust size, and begun a monthly cycle. Now, all that and more had changed.

She was taller, bustier. Her hair had changed color and her ears were in the wrong place. There were some new editions she was bound to notice. Oh he knew she wasn't going to take this well.

Fred ran his intangible hand through his transparent hair. Better to get this over with sooner rather than later. "Aki," he called gently.

"Not so loud!" she grumbled and winced. She had a serious headache and the volume was up too loud on everything. She moved to cover her ears and couldn't find them. "What?" she sat up abruptly eyes wide and hands scrabbling through her hair. She winced "Argh! Too bright!" she whined nearly hysterical, "too loud. Where are my ears? It smells." She leaned back and something pinched painfully where nothing should've been able to be pinched before. It was then she found her triangle shaped ears on the top of her head, accidentally grazing the sensitive flesh with the talons she didn't know she had. "Ow!" she howled in pain before curling forward afraid to move anymore for fear of further harming herself. Her entire body ached painfully and she wished more than anything that this was just a dream, a nightmare. She opened her eyes and stared at her hands. They were still sharp and talon-like. She was just a hair's breadth from falling into hysterics.

"Fred," Aki began very quietly. "What's happening to me?"

"You remember the witch last night?" he asked.

Aki creased brow in though before her eyes widened realization and dawning horror. "This is what the spell she was talking about was supposed to hide," she groaned unhappily. "But I've always been human, my family's human, I don't understand," she said, a dreadful idea sneaking around the back of her mind.

"I," Fred paused not really wanting to continue, "I did some digging around while you were unconscious. You're not going to like what I found out," he admitted. "I think you should soak your muscles in the hot spring just a little ways that way. You're likely to take it better when you're not in so much pain," he suggested. "We can talk while you soak or after, but I promise I will tell you what I found out."

"Alright," she agreed softly. She rolled forward onto her hands and cursed as she nearly flew over them onto her head. Her balance was all off. It was then she noticed her new appendages. "Fred?" she squeaked while eyeing them.

"Later," Fred said firmly. Like a good friend, he didn't laugh at her numerous failed attempts to walk upright. If he'd been alive, he convinced himself, he would pick her up and carry her just to save her the embarrassment.

Never the less, Aki did manage a semi-upright position and she did kind of walk…from tree to tree to get to the hot spring under her own power. She grinned triumphantly as soon as the warm water came into view. No stupid crisis was gong to keep her from those waters.

Aki began to strip down, when she realized she couldn't. She almost cried when she couldn't remove the strap of her courier-style bag. "Fred," her voice quavered with her upset.

"The shoulder bag has a buckle," he mumbled. "Just undo it."

"But what about my clothes?" she whined.

His chest heaved as if in a sigh. "Your grandmother told me you could perform a bit of illusion. Not much though but as you practice you should be able to do more." Fred studied her new appendages, "Just make them disappear when taking off your clothes or putting them back on, you should be able to hold the illusion for that."

Aki blinked, "Aren't my clothes already torn?"

"Nope, they fused with your clothing like it was your own skin. Good thing huh?" Fred teased gently. "You would've had kittens if anything had happened to that shirt."

"Can I have kittens?"

"It was a joke Aki."

"I don't now that do I? I don't know what the hell I am anymore," it was then she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the water as she slid into it having disrobed while Fred looked the other way. "There's no part of me in that person I see anymore."

"It's just a reflection Aki."

"And when was the last time you looked in the mirror and saw something else staring back at you?"

"You're still you," Fred soothed. "There's just more of you visible than you ever realized was there."

"I hate this."

"You hate yourself?"

"Fred!"

"Like I said before, I did some networking while you were unconscious," he changed the subject.

"Like on Casper."

"They got more right in that movie than would seem possible considering I've never met a single ghost that was a floating, glowing ball covered in a white sheet."

"Yeah that was a disappointment, it would've really improved your looks," Aki jested half-heartedly.

"You want me to tell you what I found out or not?" At her nod he continued. "I found some of your other family. It seems your human family wasn't your birth family."

"How is that right? I wasn't adopted."

"I'm not sure, but your human parents didn't know until after they were dead. Your dads keep arguing over who's daughter you are and your mothers just talk about your entire childhood nonstop. It was your blood grandmother who placed the original spell on you and she was quite upset when she found out it had been so tampered with and both your moms were horrified. If your blood father wasn't dead, I dare say he and your half brother would've been out for blood." Fred muttered the last. "I guess the spell was placed on you to help prolong your life. I didn't have time to get the details but now we know where all these changes came from."

"My family," Aki swallowed, "isn't my family?"

"They're still your family," Fred reassured her. "There's just more of them. They all loves ya, you know."

Aki sighed, letting the water work its magic. Things like this were better thought of at leisure. There were many more pressing things to do at the moment. "Fred, what am I going to do?" she sighed heavily.

"About what?"

"I need to get back some where safe to better learn what all I can do now, and I need to relearn how to move properly. I can't do that out here without getting into some kind of serious trouble and I can't go back through the to my apartment looking like I do," she sank down into the water.

"You still have your cell phone?"

Aki snorted. "What good is a cell phone going to do here?"

"You can use it to call Loki from the well house once you get through the well."

"We haven't even established if I can go through the well, and even if I can, how the heck is Loki supposed to help me?" Aki wondered in disbelief.

"Well his mom said he should be able to help, what with him being part youkai and somewhat well connected in the Tokyo youkai circles," Fred replied.

"When did you talk to Loki's mom?" she couldn't believe it. What was he doing? Going around chatting with the dead family of everyone they knew?

"I was networking," he defended himself. "You know networking for ghosts isn't like making a phone call. It's more like pulling the threads of a complicated spider web, one tug sets the whole thing dancing. It's like telephone bingo. You get whoever feels like picking up. Especially when you've never met the person you're trying to talk to. I dare say it's a telephone operator's version of hell."

"You've met my parents," Aki argued.

"Not the ones I was trying to talk to and I didn't know your parents and your parents were hanging out together. That was pure luck," Fred muttered. "And you're forgetting I had to reach through time to pull this off. Loki's mom was the first to answer me, and she was very helpful."

"Whatever you say," Aki murmured. "Fred?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you hear the spell that witch put on me?" she asked quietly.

"You mean she did more than just break your grandmother's spell?" he cursed the old hag. One thing was bad enough.

"Actually, she didn't break it, just kind of modified it," Aki shrugged half heartedly, sending a slightly larger ripple across the surface of the spring. "She said," Aki paused reluctant to repeat what the ugly old woman had said. It was as if saying it would make it more real, but then everything else had proved true. She sighed out the last of her reserve. "She said the next time a male youkai touched me I would go into heat," Aki blurted out in a rush.

"What?" His brain refused to make sense of that in the way people's eyes refused to recognize photographs of bloody massacres upon first viewing them. It's a defense against knowledge you honestly don't want, but it almost never works for long.

"Please don't make me repeat that," Aki whined.

"I can't believe it! What a sick old hag!" Fred exclaimed. "I can't wait 'til she finally croaks! I'll be the first there to rip her a new one!" He declared viciously. "I'll save just enough for your family to tear her apart. Sick, evil, demented witch!"

"Fred! I'm flattered by your outrage on my behalf, but that doesn't help me deal with the problem," Aki commented dryly, cutting him off from further incensed ranting.

"How in the hell do you expect to be able to deal with it? You're bound to come in contact with a male youkai hunting the shards. They're the most likely to have them!" Something occurred to the ghost, "Do partial youkai count? What about children? Oh god, I'm having day mares already!"

"Fred, calm down!" Aki yelled over the ghosts near hysterics. "This isn't helping me. I don't know if partial youkai count, I don't know if children can set it off. The witch didn't seem likely to answer those kinds of questions last night. For all I know it only works on this side of the well!"

"Guess we'll just have to hope Inuyasha was right and bank on your not having a scent," Fred muttered.

"Won't work," Aki shook her head. "The longer I go after the spell has been tripped without being violated the more intense it gets."

"The more you want to be violated," Fred mumbled with growing dread.

Aki nodded, "The more I want it, the higher my body temperature goes. The old woman decided to take a literal interpretation of heat."

"That evil, crazy, demented, ugly-"

"Fred, that's not helping," Aki cut him off.

The ghost made the motions of a sigh, "Well, you've got two options. You can set off the spell on purpose in a controlled environment and take care of it by choice, or you can attempt to go without setting it off and hope for the best."

"Definitely not the first," Aki declared.

"But you don't even know what'll set it off! How are you going to prevent it?"

"I'm just going to assume all males will set it off and avoid touching them all together. Except dead ones of course," she answered smoothly. "I'll include children and humans in that category until it is proven otherwise."

"How are you going to avoid touching an entire gender?"

"That's why I need you to help me," Aki replied. "I need you to stay between me and them as much as you can."

"You want me to run interference?" he asked incredulously. "You do realize that it's going to be nearly impossible to run interference on Inuyasha, right?"

"I trust you Fred, you can do it!" Aki said sweetly.

"Might I remind you I'm just a ghost, I can't do anything."

"I know you're a ghost Fred, that's why I asked you. Nobody's going to want to walk through you," Aki said honestly.

"Why not? Everybody seems to love walking all over me!" he grumbled good-naturedly at the main culprit for using him as a doormat.

"Walking through you isn't nearly as much fun as walking over you," Aki made a face at him teasingly, which he couldn't see with his back to her. "There's kind of this big cold shock that happens when a person walks through you. It's most unpleasant in the extreme and completely disconcerting."

"How would you know? You've never walked through me."

"When you first died you kept sticking your fingers through my arm. That was enough for me," Aki stated. She decided she'd spent enough time in the water and got out carefully. Her new body was still giving her a bit of trouble when she moved. As she dressed it was easy to see why. Her shirt, which had previously been just this side of excessively baggy, was now just a bit more loose than snug. Her jeans, which had been long enough to fully cover her shoes, now stopped at the ankle. With the aches of her body soothed, she was finally able to stand fully upright. She could now almost see over the top of Fred's ghostly head.

"How does it feel to be tall?" he asked jokingly.

"Disorienting," came her serious answer. "Everything seems so small from here. Why couldn't I have just been average height?"

Fred shrugged, "Both your blood parents were tall."

"Yeah, but my other parents were short."

"Can't fight genetics."

"Hang genetics, I want to go back to being me," Aki declared.

"You _are_ you," Fred corrected forcefully.

"You know what I meant," Aki retorted.

"Yes, I know what you meant."

"Why did everything have to get so complicated? I was just fine with my little uncomplicated though terribly melancholy life. But no, Life just had to go and add to it. I was so certain I wouldn't live past 100 years. Which meant at the most, I had eighty years left to put up with my life. Instead Life decided I had to live even longer and made me demon. Do you have any idea how long youkai live?" She ranted as she stumbled through the trees back towards the well.

"Aki," Fred began, barely containing his laughter.

"Shut up Fred. I'm venting at Life and I want it to hear every word of it," she glanced down her nose at him.

"I don't think life's a sentient entity that's going to listen to you," he commented.

"Oh, I'm sure it is. I'm certain it wakes up in the morning and takes a deep breath before saying to itself 'How can I change the entire outlook on me of someone today?' Then it comes up with an idea and Life claps its hands together and say 'Ah that! That would be a good way to do it!' and it goes out and does it to some poor unfortunate like me. And almost all the schemes life comes up with are exceedingly unpleasant. Like making someone wake up to discover themselves to be someone other than who they were. Or making a person go home to reveal the total cessation of life in their entire family, to see the blood soaked into the carpet to the point where it stands in puddles on top." She fell silent, choking on the memories.

They traveled for some time in the quiet growing light of day. Aki was slowly getting used to the noise and the light and the smell. It was probably a good thing they'd begun so early. There is not quieter time in the world than the time just before dawn when nocturnal creatures rush home to settle for the day and the day creatures have not yet awakened.

She was really getting the hang of walking through the wooded area with her new appendages, besides when they would catch on things.

"Why don't you try to run, jumping tree to tree like Inuyasha does?" Fred suggested.

"I'm still getting the hang of walking and you want me to try to run?" she was flabbergasted.

"For all you know running is easier," he argued.

"What if I fall from a tree or something?"

"Then you get back up and try again. You're part youkai now, I very much doubt you're that easy to seriously hurt," he pointed out.

"What do you mean 'part youkai'? I thought I was a youkai."

"Nah, your father had some human in him. It's why you could be spelled into being human. Your half brother has more human blood than you though. Your mom was pure demon," Fred explained.

"My father had some human in him?" she murmured. "I don't think I like that my father eats humans," she said thoughtfully, her face serious.

Fred almost nodded agreement before he realized what she had actually said. "Hey! That's not what I meant!" he yelled at her tree running back.

"Ah-hahaha!" she laughed back at him as the thrill of her quick movement coursed through her body. Running really was easier than walking contrary to logic.

Fred gave up following in pursuit almost before he began. It wasn't like she could lose him or anything. She was his anchor, the thing that kept him here. Because of her he was the only ghost he knew that could travel around the world, let alone through time. Most people when they die latch on to a thing or place, the idea being that things and places last longer than people. The downside to that was how stationary those things were.

It was great to travel as a dead guy. You never have to worry about luggage, the price is just right and you don't have to worry about the food. As long as his anchor knew the language, so did he.

Nobody he'd met had actually come up with a decent explanation for that. He could pull random knowledge out of her head, but not know everything or even what she was thinking. Then again, nobody knew what side effects would occur from choosing a person for an anchor.

There weren't any ghost that hadn't moved on that could remember anyone else choosing a person. He just had to go and be different. Most anyone else would count death as the end to all promises, but not him, oh no. He made a promise and an expiration date had never been set. He was still bound by it.

Granted the promise had been made to himself, but it still held. He wouldn't leave Aki all alone while he had any say in the matter. Which is why he anchored himself to her.

So why hadn't he followed after her yet? Probably because, like in Star Trek, it was easier to wait for her to stop and beam over to where she was than to chase after her. It was quicker too. The dead do not travel in linear motions quickly. Heck, he couldn't even keep up with Aki running when she was human. If he had a destination though, all it took was a little thought and –poof- he was there.

Like now. –Poof- and the area was empty of strange pensive ghosts pondering being dead.


End file.
